That story is also a play on Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce. That was the origin of my story about Quinnipin being hanged in King Philip’s War. There is no longer any possibility for change. A lot of my historical work grows out of the frustration that I can’t go back and right injustices from the past. MP: I know some things about the Pinochet regime because my husband is Chilean and was a student activist in Chile during that period. As a writer in the age of “truthiness,” did you feel that you had a responsibility to write about these issues? What inspired you to write about Pinochet’s regime in Santiago and the execution of Quinnapin at the end of King Philip’s War? I really appreciate that this collection is filled with diverse historical examples of globalization, colonialism, racism, antisemitism, and multiculturalism.
TM: And yet, the book is not always or only joyful. In my stories, I tried to sometimes make joy the engine, the catalyst for change, rather than always conflict acting as the catalyst. I guess I’m saying joy and laughter don’t need to be seen as an escape: they can be the engine that drives the story. It’s like the rabbi in Pittsburgh who told the story about a funeral procession and a wedding procession that meet at a crossroads, and the rabbi said that the funeral procession should always let the wedding procession go first. One function or power of fiction is to remind us of the joy of being alive, to compress or intensify that joy. Someone said to me, “I didn’t realize a reading could be fun.” We are living in dark and desperate times, and it’s important, of course, to face that and to do our part to fight against fascism, but at the same time, it’s important not to forget to laugh, to feel joy. I’ve noticed how relieved people seem to feel to spend an hour laughing and celebrating books. MP: I’ve been thinking about this a lot on my reading tour. How would you describe the function or power of fiction? This type of escape allows the characters to reveal and conceal truths, view and ignore the world around them.
In “Miraculous Escapes by Dave Tanaka,” characters meditate on the complex nature of reading as a means of escape. TM: (laughing) Speaking of that plant baby, there is something exhilarating about taking a break from the day-to-day and getting to fantasize for a moment. I once planted a seed in a pot and it grew into a baby. As in the story “The Comeback Tour,” once my husband found a weed pipe in our couch cushions when our children were teenagers, and all in a huff he threw it out the door and into the woods. I was so freaked out about losing the kids that I couldn’t really enjoy wandering through the famous graves. Micah Perks: There’s a story called “Lost in Pere Lachaise Cemetery,” and my family did actually get separated from each other in the famous Parisian cemetery, and none of us had cell phones. Thaïs Miller: Would you be willing to share any of the real-life inspiration behind the stories in this collection? Martin’s Press, 1997) and What Becomes Us (Outpost19, 2016), a memoir, Pagan Time (Counterpoint, 2009), a long personal essay, Alone in the Woods (Shebooks, 2014), and numerous short stories and essays. Perks is the author of two novels, We Are Gathered Here (St.
During a phone call in 2015, we talked about our Jewish families, historical research, and speculative fiction, and she kept anticipating my concerns and finishing my sentences in a way that I knew I had found a mentor for life. in Literature with a Creative/Critical Writing Concentration at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she co-directs the creative writing program. Perks is the reason why I chose to pursue my Ph.D. I was most amazed by Perks’s ability to weave in magical realism and speculative elements throughout these stories, especially the humanoid plant in “There Once was a Man Who Longed for a Child.” Through these stories, Isaac teaches his daughter and the reader, “You need to leaven your reality with a little magic.” Most stories are connected through a genealogy. Set mainly around the Central Coast of California, these interlinking short stories capture a multitude of unique voices within a community, culminating in a Passover Seder. I haven’t laughed aloud while reading in a long time. Simply put by Daniel, one of Perks’s characters, “The way out of the narrow place is imagination.” I agree with Kelly Link, “This collection will cure what ails you,” particularly, I might add, the Jewish humor. Thanks to Micah Perks’s short story collection, True Love and Other Dreams of Miraculous Escape, my faith in the restorative power of fiction has been renewed.
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