A moment with ... Suzan-Lori Parks, playwright

Suzan-Lori Parks won the Pulitzer Prize last year for her play "Topdog/Underdog" and became the first African American woman to garner that playwriting laurel. A year before, the Mount Holyoke graduate received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" that brought her $500,000.

Now the multi-talented wordsmith is on a national book tour for her debut novel, "Getting Mother's Body" (Random House, 257 pages, $23.95), with a robust first printing of 100,000 copies.


		Dan DeLong / P-I
	Suzan-Lori Parks won the Pulitzer Prize last year for her play "Topdog/Underdog" and became the first African American woman to garner that playwriting laurel. A year before, the Mount Holyoke graduate received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" that brought her $500,000.

All the honors have not produced an inflated ego for this engaging woman with an effervescent personality. A smile is seldom far from her face.

You recently turned 40. How did that affect you? My husband called everyone we know and threw a big party at our house (in Venice, Calif.). It was great; I got presents, ate cake, drank champagne, ate more cake. I do have a game plan. I'm just starting to play guitar, and in another 40 years I may have the chops to be a really happenin' toothless hot mama blues musician. My husband, who used to play with Muddy Waters, is teaching me.

What impact did winning the Pulitzer Prize have on you? It required me to keep reminding myself not to take myself too seriously. One could blow up or trip on yourself because of something like the Pulitzer. But I'm not that kind of person. I gotta keep going on to the next thing. I've got to not be afraid to play the guitar or sing for people, or continuing to grow. I also want to learn to surf. One could get locked in by the Pulitzer, thinking this is who I am. Doors open with it, but doors in your mind could close.

What is your strongest memory of winning? I finished my novel on April 6th, my play opened on Broadway on April 7th and I won the Pulitzer on April 8th.

What was the genesis of your novel? It's a deep and reverent bow to William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying," which also has characters on a journey dealing with a dead relative. So many of my plays have been about the dead. But the novel was really born in the landscape of West Texas, where we spent time when my father was with the Army in Vietnam. I love the big sky and arid landscape of that place. The characters came out of that landscape and the story came out of those characters. Then there was Faulkner's novel, which I had read eight years before.

What was it like taking a college class from James Baldwin? He had faith in me long before I even had faith in me. That's the great gift that a writing teacher can give a young writer. You can't overestimate the value of hearing, "Hey, you're good." He was encouraging in a scary way, not a soft mushy way. He teaches you to be tough on yourself.

Why is Suzan-Lori spelled with a "z"? It was the result of a misprint. When I was doing one of my first plays in the East Village, we had fliers printed up and they spelled my name wrong. I was devastated. But the director said, "Just keep it, honey, and it will be fine." And it was.

-- John Marshall

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