Interview with Robert Penn Warren
Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren discusses his latest book, A Band of Angels, with author and critic Virgilia Peterson, in the Books in Profile's first episode.
Miss Peterson talks about a recent issue of the London Review of Books which discusses the search for American identity in its literature, particularly literature coming from the American South.
This leads her to discuss Robert Penn Warren and his recent novel, A Band of Angels, which was based on an historical incident.
Following this, Warren recounts the historical incident, in which a pair of young women attending Oberlin who were in fact former slaves "passing" as white, return home and found them selves sold into slavery to satisfy their slave master father's debts.
Peterson asks whether Warren's novel would qualify as melodrama, or whether it merely has melodramatic elements. He declines to speculate, though he concedes the story itself has those elements.
Warren differentiates his story from its historical basis - he narrows the number of women from two to one and follows her story further than history records.
They discuss the mixture of the characters' motivations, the historical changes occurring at the time, and the modern psychological considerations the novel investigates as the plot develops.
Peterson brings up the notion of betrayal as a major theme of the novel, Warren concurs that it is a very significant part of his work, and that his characters' betrayals continued to haunt them.
Peterson asks what the "prevailing wind" of the book is (a term Warren had coined). Warren answers he did not know, but links his characters' pasts to their futures.
The title of Band of Angels came from the spiritual. He tells us that no such band of angels is coming.
Warren does not consider himself a historical novelist in that he is interested in modern life as well. He writes with the present in mind and considers history to be a significant part of the present.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 150216
Municipal archives id: LT6743
