It was really a treat to have Erin at book group to talk
about her book, Brown Eyes in a Black Wonderland (BEBW). Charlotte had sent some questions, so
we used them as a starting off point.
Erin brought some “show and tell” and let us in on some “behind the
scenes” stories.
Did Alice in
Wonderland influence you when you created the characters in the book?
Yes! The story is about a somewhat impulsive white girl
“coming of age” after some traumatic events cause her to move in with her
sister. She takes a job where just
about everyone is African American, “going down the rabbit hole,” so to
speak. And the similarities don’t
end there. Erin said that using
“Alice” made the story have an anchor, even though it’s not the same story and
not all the characters are replicated.
If you are interested in the original Alice in Wonderland
& Through the Looking Glass, it can be downloaded here: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf
How autobiographical
was the book? (Thinking of A Tree grows in Brooklyn and Betty Smith being
advised to rework her memoir as fiction).
Very! We
learned that it is set in Easton, MD.
That is where Fredrick Douglass was enslaved when he escaped http://www.hstc.org/museum-gardens/frederick-douglass. Erin told us that the town didn’t
really want the world to know how it was connected to Douglass, but they got
over it in 2011 and erected a statue http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/06/16/md-hometown-honors-douglass-after-years-debate.html.
This book was the first book she wrote, but she didn’t finish it, and instead
wrote Spanish Soap Operas. Then she came back and did a
rewrite. Many of the characters
are modeled after people she met and knew in her youthful travel adventures, although
the story events are different.
Erin did say there was a real restaurant and even brought a photo and current
menu from the place – the marvels of the Internet.
We talked about the characters we liked, which events
resonated for us, and how learning about other cultures/races is a process,
among other things.
There’s way more, but I hope I captured some highlights of
our conversation. If you want more
fun with BEBW, then here is Erin’s Facebook page, where she posts some juicy
tidbits:
