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September 15, 2017 - Image 19

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MICHIGAN DAILY

COMMUNITY CULTURE

Literati brings lauded
U-M novelists together

Peter Ho Davies and Derek

Palacio talk fate, fiction and the
meaning of home. They have
the kind of professional and
personal friendship all aspiring
authors would hope for. After
meeting through Palacio’s wife,
fiction star Claire Vaye Watkins,
they’ve both taught
at
the
University

of
Michigan,

championed
each

other’s
work
and

played soccer with
their MFA students
on the weekends.

Last year, both the

authors
published

novels which have
earned them critical recognition
and literary attention. Davie’s
second novel, “The Fortunes,”
loosely connects four stories of
the Chinese-American experience
through space and time, while
Palacio’s
debut
novel
“The

Mortification” follows a Cuban-
American family as they navigate a
new life in New England.

You’ve both written fiction for

many years, of course, but you also
both teach creative writing here at
Michigan. How does this process
of teaching new writers inform
your own practice? Or, maybe, it
doesn’t, and you view them as two
very separate endeavors?

Davies: Good students — and

we’re lucky to have excellent ones
here —keep you on your toes! Their
work is so distinctive, so individual,
that I feel I’m often learning from
it, as I often do from hearing what
they’re reading. More than this
though, their passion for writing,
their commitment to their work, is
often simply inspiring.

Palacio:
They’re
pretty

complementary for me. I’ve been
very fortunate to teach in very
different settings. Michigan is
very different from the IEIA [the
Institute of American Indian Arts
MFA, where Palacio also teaches]
program. And from the Mojave
School [a writing program started
by Palacio and his wife, Claire
Vaye Watkins, for students in rural
Nevada].

Let’s talk a little bit more

in-depth about each of your most
recent novels, “The Mortifications”
and “The Fortunes.” Both titles
evoke a mystic or religious theme,
and this theme is extended through
the novels with discussions of
the role of fate or destiny in the
narrative, as well as human agency.
What drew you to this theme?

Davies: I want to suggest with

“The Fortunes” the mixture of luck
and fate that shapes the characters’
lives, but the title, of course, is also
a reference to that most common
Chinese-American signifier, the
fortune cookie. Everyone knows
the fortune cookie isn’t really
Chinese (you don’t get fortune
cookies in restaurants in China, of
course) but something about how
bogusly Chinese they are makes me
think of them as humbly, but also
authentically Chinese-American.

Palacio:
There’s
a
lot
of

wonderful immigrant fiction out
there about coming to America
and assimilating, finding your
place. But there are also wonderful
stories — and this is where “The
Mortifications” leans — about the
impossibility of ever feeling that
this is your home. The question
most immigrants have to ask is:
What would my life have been
like if I’d stayed? There’s always
these two tracks of comparison,

and
because

you
can’t
ever

fully leave your
culture
behind,

or fully embrace
the new culture
in which you live,
it’s a question you
carry with you
always. The idea
of destiny and fate

in this book is woven into the idea
of family — what might have been
had they stayed.

Derek, “The Mortifications” is

billed as a new take on the Cuban-
American immigrant narrative.
Stylistically, it could be seen as
more restrained, something that
you don’t come across much
in older classics of the Cuban-
American
literary
tradition.

Thematically, it takes place in
New England, far from Cuban-
American strongholds like Miami.
Was this use of language and
location a response to the colorful,
over-the-top exuberance of older
narratives in this tradition? Or was
it less a reaction to this tradition,
than simply a reflection of your
own voice and experience?

Palacio: I don’t know if I was

really trying to differentiate or push
away from that. There’s a lot of stuff
in here — the food, characters such
as Uxbal [the father left behind in
Cuba] — that is a ridge between
these two literary traditions. On
my father’s side I’m technically a
first generation American. So from
that perspective, I’m not that far
from Cuba, but I also grew up in
New Hampshire, and I don’t speak
Spanish. So I was really trying to
write about the Cubans I knew,
which was my family growing up in
New England. I don’t know if we’re
more restrained — we’re probably
just more “New England.”

I wanted to talk to you both

about the vital role women play
in your narratives. The mother,
as a recurring symbol and as a
living, breathing person, crops
up in both your works quite a bit.
In “The Mortifications,” she’s an
immensely important character
who in fact sets the narrative in
motion by moving the family to
the U.S. and leaving her husband
behind. Significant mother figures,
absent or present, also weave their
way through each story in “The
Fortunes.” Why was it important
to feature these mothers, and how
did you try to better understand
and portray them?

Davies: Parenthood has been a

theme in my fiction for a while now
(even before I was a parent, writing
about it was a kind of rehearsal!)
but you’re right that mothers play
a key role in each section of The
Fortunes. That likely reflects their
importance in immigrant stories,

in settling, in creating homes and
families, in nurturing successive
generations.

Palacio: I finished the book

before our kid was born — we have
a three-year-old now. But with
Soledad [the novel’s matriarch],
and for the rest of the characters to
a degree, this is a book that didn’t
want to stray much from the big
questions. When I was writing
Soledad, I had that question that
parents who move their families
have to always ask: Am I glad I did
that? You’re ripping them from one
world and putting them in another.
What does that leave you in the
new world? Is that a power you can
invoke again and again, or is that
a power that diminishes, because
you’ve already exercised it? Maybe
you only get to do that once in their
lives. Isabel [Soledad’s daughter]
gets a long leash, but that’s a
freedom that comes in the wake of
disrupting Isabel’s early childhood
in Cuba. As a parent, I’m living
[some of these questions] now.

There
is,
at
times,
an

undercurrent of sensuality or
sexuality that runs through both
your works, yet it doesn’t play
into stereotypes or conventional
mainstream notions of Chinese,
Cuban,
Chinese-American
or

Cuban-American sexuality. For
instance, Chinese sex workers are
portrayed as neither exotic sirens
nor alluring victims, and Cuban-
American mother Soledad gains
stature in the United States not
from her “tropical” sensuality,
but
from
her
cautious,
cool

professionalism. How do you side-
step adding to the over-sexualized
portrayals of Asian and Latin
American women in the United
States,
without
making
your

characters seem frigid or flat?

Davies: There are a lot of

stereotypes, both about Asian
women and men, and I wanted
less to side-step them than to
confront them. For instance, the
character of Anna May Wong, the
first Chinese-American movie star,
who helped create some of those
very stereotypes, but who was
also imprisoned — personally and
professionally — by them. [This]
was a great way to address and
then undermine stereotypes.

Palacio: You’re always hoping

that you’re treating every character,
regardless of gender, as a full
individual with their own sense of
desire. With Soledad, there was
some element of wanting her to
find some joy somewhere along
the way in this journey. With
[my characters], Soledad and
Isabel, I was very lucky. I can’t
claim any deliberateness in my
fortune with them. They were
just such powerful people, and
I’ve been lucky to know a lot of
powerful women in my life. My
mother is a very strong presence
in my life, when I think of her
personality and how she moves
through the world, and my wife
is a complete and total genius
and champion. I’ve been lucky to
be surrounded by these women,
so I can’t think of women in any
other way. I try not to, and I try
to remember that when I come
to the page.

MERIN MCDIVITT

Daily Arts Writer

“Fiction at
Literati”

September 15th @

7 P.M.

Literati Bookstore

DO YOU LIKE DAVID LYNCH A BIT TOO MUCH? IS YOUR

HOMEPAGE IMDB? DO YOU THINK JUDE LAW IS THE

MESSIAH, BUT IN FORM ONLY?

If so, you’re probably crazy! But we are too. Consider joining!

Email arts@michigandaily.com for more information

SHOWTIME

‘Twin Peaks’ finale fulfills
decades-old ambitions

The beauty of mystery and

the uncanny in “Twin Peaks”
has always been its strongest
asset. Lynch and company
never strive to produce a show
that’s
obvious,
self-evident

or plain. As a result, “Twin
Peaks” is a deeply polarizing
show: You can choose to
reject the lack of structure,
or
embrace
the

sidewinding,
glacial
pace.

Unsurprisingly,
the
program

rewards
the

second approach
more
than
the

first.
For
those

who stuck around, the series
finale offered more questions
than answers, concluding the
series without being heavy-
handed.

Released together, “Part 17”

and “Part 18” complete the trek
of the series that was cut short.
At an accidental rendezvous,
Special Agent Dale Cooper’s
doppelganger
(Kyle

McLachlan, “Portlandia”) is
shot by none other than Lucy
Brennan (Kimmy Robertson,
“Beauty
and
the
Beast”).

This occurrence is a high
water mark for the plausible,
yet still absurd addition of
comedy to moments of intense
gravity.
The
manifestation

of BOB’s energy is broken
by
Freddie
Sykes
(Jake

Wardle,
“something”),
and

then doppelganger Cooper is
quickly sent back to the Black
Lodge by real Cooper. The
series ends here, right? Wrong.

While the key narrative

threads
have
been
tied

together, the majority of the
finale is devoted to Cooper’s
re-undertaking of the case

of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee,
“Wild at Heart”). It feels alien
to re-encounter this major
element
because
so
much

of “The Return” was spent
outside of Twin Peaks. Still,
Cooper as the hero restored
acts as if he had never left,
preventing her murder after
Philip
Jeffries
(a
cameo

by the late David Bowie)
transports him to the night of
the event. The morning that
follows, however, Laura still
disappears.

The
events

which
follow

Cooper’s
apparent rescue
of Laura seem
extraneous and
unrelated.

For audiences

that
were

looking for closure, the series
may as well end there for
them. Cooper returns to the
Black Lodge again, and is
escorted out by Diane. They
leave, drive down a long desert
highway
before
“crossing

over,” and arrive at a motel to
have sex. Diane (Laura Dern,
“Big Little Lies”) revealed in
“Part 16” that the multiple
iterations
of
one
person

(although not doppelgangers)
are
called
tulpas,
coming

from the tradition of Tibetan
Buddhism. Tulpas are beings
that are born into existence
by strong spiritual or mental
powers — somewhat like an
imaginary
friend.
Dougie

Jones (still Kyle McLachlan) is
an example of a tulpa, created
by Cooper’s doppelganger.

In the morning, Cooper

wakes up alone, and reads
a letter on the bed stand
addressed to Richard from
Linda. He proceeds to find
a
Laura
Palmer
lookalike,

Carrie
Page
(Sheryl
Lee),

and attempts to reunite her
with her mother. When they

arrive at Laura’s old address,
a stranger answers, denying
any connection to the Palmer
family. Carrie and Cooper turn
away and prepare to leave, but
not before Cooper senses a
disturbance. Carrie screams
the
iconic
Laura
Palmer

scream, and the power goes
out. Credits roll.

For those expecting a clean

ending,
the
unfolding
of

events may be confusing. Who
are Richard and Linda? Why
is Laura Palmer back, again?
Where did Diane and Cooper
cross over to? None of these
questions are the right ones to
ask. “Twin Peaks” has never
operated at a literal level, so
the audience is pointed to the
greater concepts of the series.
Strong will and determination
can take human form; good
and evil are constantly at
war; spirits and magic hide
in plain sight. “Twin Peaks:
The Return” may not have
been
the
series
audiences

anticipated, but it is the series
that delivered an appropriate,
creatively rich conclusion.

JACK BRANDON

Daily Arts Writer

“Twin Peaks:
The Return”

Showtime

Series Finale

TV REVIEW

“Twin Peaks” has

never operated
at a literal level,
so the audience
is pointed to the
greater concepts

of the series

Read more at
MichiganDaily.com

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, September 15, 2017 — 7A

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