How large a role, if any, does autobiography play in Grass Roof, Tin Roof?
This was a necessary and, in many ways, quite personal book for me to write. I will admit that I have taken a lot from my family’s and my own experiences, but mostly on a superficial level only, and as starting points from which to build fictional situations. For instance, the impetus to write the chapter titled “Chickens” came from a dim memory of a situation in my childhood when a man came to our property and accused my father of having killed his dog. I don’t now remember the actual event or how it turned out, if I ever really remembered or knew it. It is possible that many parts of my book were derived in this way, both consciously and unconsciously, from a store of imagined memories and misremembered or indirectly absorbed anecdotes and ruminations and even purposefully distorted facts. I guess I consider this to be the nature of fiction, at least in the way I’m compelled to write it. Q) Was there much research involved in writing Grass Roof, Tin Roof? A) My manner of research was
