68
2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
“WHAT LIVING IN NEW YORK AND IOWA HAS TAUGHT ME IS THAT WHILE NORTH CAROLINA, FOR NOW, ISN’T WHERE I WANT TO LIVE, I HAVE A LOVE FOR IT THAT WILL NEVER GO AWAY. I KNOW THAT BECAUSE THOUGH I MOVED AWAY SO MANY YEARS AGO, IT’S THE ONLY PLACE I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT.” —De’Shawn Charles Winslow
I’ve certainly witnessed and experienced micro-aggressions in North Carolina (and in Iowa). Not nearly as much as my parents and grandparents have, of course. Many of the experiences take the form of situations like the one portrayed in the scene you mentioned. I’ve been followed around in stores and asked by landlords to pay higher deposits, even when the minimum credit score and income requirements were met. One of the most ambitious aspects of the novel is its temporal scope. It begins in 1941 and moves forward in time to the year 1987. What kind of research was required to tell the story of this community evolving over so many years, through so many historical moments? Before I decided to set the novel in a fictional town, I’d done some research on my mother’s hometown of South Mills, North Carolina. But I found that I wouldn’t use much of that information, and I wanted to play with street names, etc. In terms of US history, I relied heavily on Google. In what other ways has the experience of living in Harlem (and Iowa) while writing about North Carolina informed your work? What living in New York and Iowa has taught me is that while North Carolina, for now, isn’t where I want to live, I have a love for it that will never go away. I know that because though I moved away so many years ago, it’s the only place I want to write about. COURTESY OF MARLY YOUMANS
ABOVE Marly Youmans
MARLY YOUMANS Marly Youmans grew up in Cullowhee, North Carolina, as well as Louisiana and elsewhere. She currently lives in the village of Cooperstown, New York. She graduated from Hollins College (now University), Brown University, and UNC Chapel Hill. Youmans has been awarded many “book of the year” and “best of the year” citations by magazines, newspapers, and organizations. She is the winner of The Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction for her 2001 novel, The Wolf Pit, which was also on the short list for The Southern Book Award. She is a two-time winner of the Theodore Hoepfner Award for the short story and the winner of the New Writers Award given by New York’s Capital Magazine, also for the short story. Her latest awards are The Ferrol Sam’s Award for Fiction and the Book of the Year Award from Foreword for her