Ask The Author: Annie Hartnett

Presenting responses to questions regarding “Dead Alice,” from Annie Hartnett, in the May Issue, ladies and gentlemen.

1. How would you react if a dead lover wrote you letters?

I’d send them a care package. Things they might miss from life, things that ship well: Oreos, comic books, canned fish. A flashlight, in case it’s dark down there.

2. Whose name would you carve?

Where would you carve it? I’d carve my still-alive boyfriend’s name on J’s Oyster in Portland, Maine. I don’t eat seafood; I just drink beer and watch him eat. It’s very romantic.

3. What is heaven to you?

My dog will be able to speak human. There will be carrot cake and coffee for breakfast. Fall foliage all year round. There will be a soundtrack, probably the Tom Waits station on Pandora.

4. Whose grave would you dance on?

I live in a cemetery in Alabama, so I dance on a lot of graves. It’s nothing personal, it’s just my backyard. The house is the old groundskeeper’s house. Rent is cheap.

5. How would you like to die?

Who would you haunt? I want to live long enough that my grandkids have to learn how to pop my glass-eye back in when it falls out. But when I was a teenager, I’m sure I would have liked the drama of getting beheaded in a rollercoaster accident. After I do die, I don’t think I’ll haunt anyone. I’ll be too busy eating cake and talking to the dog.

6. Would you write me letters or would you rather lose my address?

I would write you letters, if you give me your mailing address. I have terrific handwriting.