David Heatley (BSS #247)
David Heatley is most recently the author of My Brain is Hanging Upside Down.
Condition of Mr. Segundo: On the waiting list for a brain transplant.
Author: David Heatley
Subjects Discussed: [List forthcoming]
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Correspondent: I wanted to also talk with you about your “Family History” strip. I mean, it’s probably the closest thing in this collection to a hip-hop montage. You have, of course, the many births with the common images. A mother — one of your ancestors — giving birth with the “UNNNNH!” And you have a marriage with the “I do.” The swathed baby who is being held up by the white hands. And the like. I wanted to ask why repetitive images, or a hip-hop montage, seemed the best way to approach your own particular past.
Heatley: It’s funny. I never would have — that phrase “hip-hop montage” is strange to me. But it also rings true. So, yeah, thanks for that. You know, the repetitive thing is about — once I had my own baby, it was a realization that every single person that’s been born in my family history was this baby at one point. And every mother of that baby grunted in the hospital, and pushed it out. So it’s sort of honoring all these faceless women who have been lost. And it’s also — I think that strip is about, if you take any one of those babies, you can make a book this long about them. And so I’m just one of the babies in that book. And here’s my entire story. And I do it with my daughter at the end. Instead of doing one panel for her life, I wind up doing four pages, focusing on that day. So you could do that for any of those babies too. You could focus in on what was happening that day when they were born.
Correspondent: How did you settle upon the four Ns for the “UNNNNH?”
Heatley: (laughs)
Correspondent: I’m really curious. I mean, did you try out three? Did you try out five?
Heatley: I did, yeah.
Correspondent: Did that just look right? Four Ns really cut that particular verisimilitude?
Heatley: (laughs) Yeah, it did. You know, it’s like poetry. It felt right.
Correspondent: (laughs)
Heatley: That’s a great question though. Four Ns. I didn’t even know they were consistent.
Correspondent: Because it’s four Ns in almost every….I mean, we could dig it out right here. It’s four Ns almost every single time.
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[...] Heatley appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #247. Heatley is most recently the author of My Brain is Hanging Upside [...]
[...] David Heatley, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down: I have been asked to contribute my thoughts for the Barnes and Noble Review’s forthcoming best of books list. Since I am a man of honor when it comes to my professional duties, I feel that the right thing to do is to remain silent and mysterious . But I will fill in this blank and update this post when the link goes up. Needless to say, the book in question does fall alphabetically between “Hall” and “Hunt.” And I’m pretty sure that you can figure it out. (UPDATE: The list is now up. And you can also listen to the Segundo interview here.) [...]