Tyler Parker On Inherently Flawed Characters And Embracing Maximalism
In Tyler Parker’s tragicomic western, the equally hilarious and heartbreaking A Little Blood And Dancing, readers are introduced to a trio of unforgettable characters whose lives collide with one another over the span of several decades. When we first meet Table, a low-level criminal adept at discovering new levels of incompetence, he’s fresh off a drug deal gone disastrously wrong. At a meeting with Table’s boss that night, also attended by Solomon’s five-year-old daughter, Priscilla, Table impulsively commits an act of violence that upends the course of Priscilla and Table’s lives. Years later, Table falls in love with the perceptive and tart Lady Sixkiller, and the two embark on their singular version of domestic bliss. Yet Table resists regular employment, and his financial hopes are thwarted by a wealthy relative who refuses to die. Meanwhile, the now grown Priscilla struggles to reckon her burgeoning faith with her past trauma as she enters the adult world. Both Priscilla and Table are haunted by the violent act that connects them, and this shared memory leads to an inexorable reunion. Parker spoke to us about his literary influences, creating the comic world of the novel, and embracing maximalism in epigraphs.
