About Dead but Not Ready
Q: This story is about a man who has a purpose in life. But his purpose is derailed by the threat of death.
RS: Life is empty, I think, without purpose. But by its nature, purpose is always running ahead of us. If we achieve one purpose, we find another. So unless we’re very lucky, our purpose is going to be interrupted by mortality.
Q: Not all of us embrace an achievable purpose.
RS: That’s a personal matter. For some women, reproducing and raising children gives life purpose. And while the achievement may be difficult, finding that purpose may not. For other women—and for most men—finding purpose can present serious challenges. And the achievement of the purpose, once found, may be more than difficult. It might be impossible. The brevity of a single life adds to the challenge.
“As a writer, I nourish the delusion that my work will outlive me, and that people will find meaning in what I’ve done long after I’m gone.”
Q: Leaving life with your purpose unsatisfied has to be one of the harder pills to swallow. That’s Denlon’s challenge.
RS: Yes, that’s his challenge.
Q: Is delusion the only readiness for death? Is that where Denlon ends up?
RS: The answer to that question hinges on how you define “delusion.” Hopes, dreams, stories, aspirations— In one sense, anything that’s imagined is a “delusion.” But it’s possible that one of Denlon’s colleagues will be so inspired by his Temple that the structure will be completed after his death. It’s possible that, even without a construction project, the idea of his Temple, or the story about his passion for it, will have some meaningful effect on our world.
As a writer, I nourish the delusion that my work will outlive me, and that people will find meaning in what I’ve done long after I’m gone. That is probably a “delusion,” but it’s a vital one for me; and only by embracing it will I have any chance of realizing the “delusion” in one form or another.
“I’m fascinated by the idea that potential malignancies are part of our makeup.”
Q: Despite its dark subject, Dead but Not Ready has laughs. Cancer and humor is a combination with some discomfort.
RS: In our era, cancer is the common doom. It’s the end most of us fear. And a great many of us will face it, sooner or later. Having grown up on the beaches of Southern California, I had a lot of sun in my youth. That gave me a slow induction through skin cancers, most of which don’t pose much risk. But later in life, I had a more serious scare—something that involved an interior organ. They were able to remove it before it metastasized, but the experience was indelible. How do you live with the knowledge that there’s a significant likelihood that malignancy will be part of your future? Laughing helps, I think.
Q: In the novel, malignancy is an agent of decomposition.
RS: It’s part of the natural world. It’s an ally of the generative forces that give us life. The same earth that gave birth to Denlon is going to uncreate him and take him back. I’m fascinated by the idea that potential malignancies are part of our makeup. They’re inside us all our lives. If and when they’re activated, the body has to defend itself. As we age, our defenses weaken and malignancies are able to get a foothold.
“A feature of our species is that our parents preside over our lives for so long that we attribute powers to them that they don’t really have.”
Q: We’re used to thinking of the botanical world in positive terms.
RS: We are. But the growth of plant and tree roots is an apt metaphor for the growth of tumors. When you look at scans of malignancies, there are often physical resemblances. The invisibility of roots—moving as they do, beneath the surface—supports that likeness, as does their disruptive power. And there’s the sense of inevitability that comes from advancing movement.
Q: What caused you to choose the Appalachian location?
RS: I lived in western Virginia for a while, not far from the West Virginia border. I wandered the forests, floated the rivers and crawled through the New River caves. The narrow valleys have a dark magic. And the imprint of coal on the region is powerful. I had friends who came from families where all of the men spent their waking hours beneath the earth. There’s a frightening and unsubtle resonance with the end we all must eventually face.
In today’s world, there are powerful forces lined up against the mining culture. But during my time in the region, there was coal everywhere you looked. Mines and coal heaps, sulfur in the air, coal trucks, coal trains on the tracks, miners in sooty clothing.
Q: For someone like Denlon, loyalty to mother and home is dangerous.
RS: Very dangerous. That isn’t something I invented. If you listen to songs of the region from a century ago, they’re full of that conflict. The lure of large cities, urban employment, urban women. The prospect of labor in the mines would provide a strong motivation to leave. But the songs usually took the side of resisting those impulses and remaining with mother and home. If a young man departed, the music might describe him feeling regret and remorse. And in a surprising number of songs, there’s guilt levied for abandonment. The music was a kind of gravitational force, pulling the children of the dark valleys back to where they were from.
Q: The idea of growing up in a shack perched on the rim of a sinkhole is chilling.
RS: In that part of the country, there are sinkholes everywhere. And it’s not uncommon for them to appear near dwellings. They are dangerous. People fall into them. Or they venture into them and get lost or have trouble getting out. The entrance to a cave system is often through a sinkhole. There was a cave some friends of mine favored. The farmer who owned the property would park himself a hundred feet from the sinkhole we used and fire his shotgun at us as we emerged.
Q: At different points in the story, Denlon fears that his parents are in league with the roots. But that’s not really true.
RS: A feature of our species is that our parents preside over our lives for so long that we attribute powers to them that they don’t really have. If the world around us is right and good, parents may get the credit. Conversely, if things are going wrong, we may blame them or imagine it’s their fault.
Special Thanks
Sue Dille, Lee Rather, Mercedes Cerna, Debra St. Claire, Leah Backhus and Angela Lee.
Special Thanks
Sue Dille, Lee Rather, Mercedes Cerna, Debra St. Claire, Leah Backhus and Angela Lee.