The Lightning Room With Tawnysha Greene

PANK and Tawnysha Greene – author of the short story “Daddy’s Teeth” in our December issue – talk scars.

1. This is an immensely physical piece; the casual, bodily damage it describes is almost difficult to read. Can you tell us about the experience of writing this? How did you know you’d succeeded in drawing out the most discomfort?

“Daddy’s Teeth” is actually a chapter in my novel-in-progress, A House Made of Stars, and I wanted this story to stand out as a moment of darkness and desperation in an already bleak narrative. I decided to make this chapter one of the shortest in the novel and use the starkest descriptions I could think of in narrating the scene, so that the moment almost seemed like a flashbulb memory in that while the moment is brief, small details such as the smell of the father’s breath and the blood he spits into a pot would stand out so much more than they would in a longer, more fully developed chapter. I had also hoped that the brevity of the chapter would intensify an already heightened moment and together with such stark descriptions would frighten readers as the child protagonist feels frightened and overwhelmed by what is happening in front of her.

When I wrote the story, I tried to frighten myself with the details. I strive to empathize with my characters as much as possible when writing, so I kept asking myself – what would make me uncomfortable, what would shock me, what would scare me? I didn’t realize the full extent of how the story could affect readers until it was published in PANK. So many friends and colleagues wrote that they had tried reading the story, but couldn’t get past the first few sentences, and it was then that I saw that when I scared myself, I could convey those same feelings to those reading the story.

2. This story, though written from the viewpoint of a child, is centered on the pain and slow destruction of the father. How did you decide to narrate the story from this perspective?

I decided to write from a young child’s point of view, because I felt that I could write scenes of trauma best from a child’s eyes. I find that a child’s point of view is less complicated than an adult’s and while the child in a story may not always understand what is happening to him/her, the audience, of course, does. In trusting readers with this understanding, I felt that I could write these scenes more truthfully than I could with an adult narrator.

3. The father in this piece not only doubts authority (“Sometimes we have to be our own doctors,” he repeats), but also the love of his family (blanching at his wife’s touch). The piece emerges as a portrait of doubt, both corporal and spiritual. What do you suppose drives this father’s desire for (or need to experience) pain? Why can’t he stand to be touched?

In the course of the novel, the father is revealed to have been abused as a child, and therefore is wary of touch of any kind. He withdraws deeply into himself as a defense mechanism, and by pushing his past behind him, attempts to establish himself as one who is above pain and grief. In being emotionless in the face of adversity, he struggles to prove to himself that he is dependent on no one – not God, doctors, or even his family. In the end, a private moment between husband and wife, he falters, because he is, of course, still human, and the wounds he fights so hard to cover are still very much real.

4. Similarly, among so many other things, this seems to be a story about touch, and connection; the ways we bring power to our bodies (whether by tender hand or skinny knife). Can you talk a little about this link between violence done to the self and the tenderness of others?

When the father attempts to cut out his teeth with a knife or when the mother attempts to comfort him at the story’s end, they are communicating both to themselves and each other. The father tries to prove himself as strong and independent and the mother as tender and compassionate, but often these communications, and thus connections, are broken and/or rebuffed. The father knocks the mother’s hand away and walks away from her at the beginning, he pulls out his teeth by himself, and when he speaks to his daughter, only emphasizes the importance of being self-sufficient. He views connection as a weakness, and therefore resists touch and love, except in private where he thinks no one else can see him.

5. I’m also struck in this story by the sense of falling apart, the accumulation of wounds. There is ruin here. Is this what the mother prays for, an end to this?

The mother, unlike the father, does long for connection, and as a result of being so often rebuffed by her husband, turns to God for love and comfort. She prays often in the novel and while the daughter often does not hear what she says, she can imagine from how the mother prays, in a sad, desperate way, that her mother asks for healing and for mercy.

6. What’s your favorite scar?

My favorite scars are from wounds either my mother or I tended to when my family didn’t have money to go see a doctor. These scars are cleaner and are far less noticeable than ones where I’ve had stitches. For example, I cut my fingers open once while opening a can, and after the bleeding stopped, my mom made splints of popsicle sticks and tightly wrapped my fingers with toilet paper and electrical tape. I wore the splints for two weeks afterwards, and today, there are hardly scars.