Welcome back to the Lightning Room, where DeWitt Brinson & Simon Jacobs take turns asking PANK authors extremely difficult questions about their work. Today, Simon talks with Marcelina Vizcarra, whose story “The Oldest Living American” appeared in our February, 2013 issue. The secret of immortality, below.

 1. “The Oldest Living American” explores, among other things, our glorification/souvenirification (which is not a word) of objects or people recovered or still present from our collective past. Why do we suppose we do this?

That’s a good question. I think these relics give us a vicarious participation in our past. Maybe if we connect to something outside of our timelines, we extend them. That’s the optimistic aspect. But there’s also a darker theme in our efforts to distinguish ourselves, a sense of ownership that I’m guilty of, to appropriate all manners of objects and people from the cabinets of history. In that respect, Harvey is a sort of living Wunderkammer that can be picked through, and his panoramic experiences can be appraised against market trends. Lately, I’ve come to view our collective past as yet another store for the modern consumer, yet another way to define ourselves by what we purchase.

2. This story presents a number of perspectives of the same, very old man; in so doing, you manage to bring up a host of issues surrounding what we do with our old; what inspired you to write this story, and to use this multi-perspective approach?

Some of my first jobs were taking care of elderly neighbors, and then the institutionalized, so these characters tend to volunteer often in my writing. I’m especially fascinated by the artificial stasis imposed upon them during their slide into dependence, along with its accompanying indignities—perhaps the most offensive being the assumption of muted emotions, or worse, naïvete. I suspect that the fear of this marginalized future is what funds our society’s contradictory stances—disdain for old age but celebration of longevity. Harvey embodies both, so I put his death under public scrutiny, harkening back to the old coroner’s juries. Continue reading →