Book Talk
Tuesday,November 13,2007
Madison Public Library
Marshall J. Cook
Pleasedon't come back from the moon
By Dean Bakopoulos
1) pleasedon't comeback from the moon
"""'"
"When 1was 16,my father went to the moon."
With all the man gone,we boys becamemen. Our mothersbecamemen, too.
"We missedour fathers."
"I was having one of thosemomentswhen 1 didn't want him to comeback home."
2) somememoriesof my father
"We missedthe drone of their big, clumsypresence."
3) summer1992
"Your nameis Sonyanot Sunny."
4) the calming effect of jelly doughnuts
"1 was old enoughto know a few things, and one of them was this: the bestAmerican short
storiesweren't written by peoplelike me."
"1 still have a tendencyto sit back andwait out the bad things that try andtake over my life."
5) a newcomer'sguide to Ann Arbor
How to escapeMaple Rock on a Friday night: "Do not fall in love."
6) the boy with the backwardchakra
"You can spendthe night. It's inevitable." Holly Holloway to Michael.
"God, if anything,had to be a woman."
7) capableof love
"We've long ago lost the idea ofpemlanenceas a possibility."
"For the record, if you arenow capableof love, we considerthat unfair."
8) knights of labor
"Perhapswe had dreams.To be honest,we couldn't rememberthem. .. .Perhapsyou, our fathers,
perhapsyou know what we wantedfrom life."
9) the warning signsand symptomsof depression,2001
"Not one goddamnsecondof deadair in my career.Not one goddamnsecond."Gina Gunderson
10)pleasedon't... (reprise)
Lessthan two yearslater, "the moon finally called our names."
"It didn't get us yet.. .Eventuallyit might. Eventually it might win."
"I didn't believe I belongedhere.I believed,sooneror later, I would destroyall of it."
"Like an eye,the moon follows us whereverwe go."
Why is FatherWalter Gorski's disappearance
the most disturbing of all the defectionsto the
moon?
With all the men gone,the boys and women becomemen. What doesthis meanspecifically?
What doesMichael rememberandmiss abouthis father?
What is your overall impressionof Michael's father from his descriptionof him?
Why does SonyaSteckobreak up with Michael?
What effect doesManny Holloway's deathhave on Michael? How aboutthe awarenessthat
FatherMack is sleepingwith Michael's mother?
What doesit say aboutMichael that he can't tell if a book is goodwithout its cover blurbs?
What is a "backwardheartchakra"?
Why was Nick's plan to lead a sit-down strike at the mall "glorious and dangerousall at once"?
Is Michael suffering from depression?
Why doesn't Ella move in with Michael when he asks?Why doesshemove in later?
What (de)evolutiondoesthe old neighborhoodand the town of Maple Rock undergo?
What do you think Bunny Slowinski was trying to conveyin his messageto his son?("Dear Tom.
There's no.")
Where was Bunny all thoseyearsbefore he's found deadin the Super8 in Effingham, lliinois?
What doesTom believe?How aboutMichael? How aboutyou?
Dean Bakopoulos was born in DearbornHeights, Michigan on July 6,1975 to a Ukrainian
mother and a Greekfather.A child of immigrants,he grew up speakingboth Ukrainian and
English. He went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and,while in school,worked as a
writer for WWJ News Radio in Detroit. After graduatingin 1997,he got married, movedto
Wisconsin,worked on a horsefarm (the bestjob he ever had, he says),and then becamethe buyer
for CanterburyBooksellers,which oncewas a bookstorein Madison,Wisconsin.Later, he
graduatedfrom the University of WisconsinMFA program and servedas executivedirector of
the Wisconsin HumanitiesCouncil.