On Character and Community: A Q&A with Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez introduces readers to an incredible figure in history and a town shrouded in secrets in this remarkable tale of family, home and hope. Read on for an exclusive Q&A with Dolen on community, the importance of language, conducting research, her influences and more.

Hardcover $26.00 $29.00

Happy Land

Happy Land

By Dolen Perkins-Valdez

In Stock Online

Hardcover $26.00 $29.00

A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it—in this enthralling novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.

A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it—in this enthralling novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand.

IM: Can you please set up the story of your new novel for us?

DPV: This is a novel inspired by true events in western North Carolina. In the late 1800s, there existed a community of freed people — formerly enslaved people — who pulled together their resources and established a community that was self-sustaining. They called themselves the Kingdom of the Happy Land. They named a king and a queen, they produced liniment called Happy Land Liniment that was hugely successful, and they were a community that lasted for decades.

IM: Where did this story really start for you? Since this book is based on a real piece of history, did you have a moment where you knew you wanted to write it?

“Just because something makes for an interesting tidbit or a fascinating historical detail, that doesn’t mean you can always translate it into a novel.”

DPV: I knew it was an interesting bit of history, but I never know when something that I find interesting is going to make a good book. Just because something makes for an interesting tidbit or a fascinating historical detail, that doesn’t mean you can always translate it into a novel. Visiting the land is what made a difference. I booked a plane ticket to Hendersonville, North Carolina, and I met with a couple of locals down there, Suzanne Hale and Ronnie Pepper. I knew after that trip that I had a book because it had all of the elements that I look for: it was intriguing, there was limited archival information — at least we thought so at the time — and it was a part of America that I love, which is rural America. I knew I wanted to bring life and attention to it, and it was just so beautiful in the Blue Ridge Mountains there in western North Carolina. It’s some of the most beautiful country you’ll ever see in your entire lifetime. I knew then that I had to write about it.

IM: I’m so glad you did, because I really loved this book. I paused reading a few times to look up pictures of the area around Hendersonville and it looks stunning. Did being on the land influence the way you wrote about the setting? It was so vivid throughout — I could really smell the flowers, I could see the hills, feel the sun on my shoulders. Did being there help you with that aspect of the creative process?

DPV: It did. There’s a line in the book where Nikki, my contemporary character, looks out at the sky and she thinks about her ancestor Luella, and she says, “Looking out at this sky, I can see how Luella found love here.” That’s how I felt when I visited the land that used to be the kingdom. When I was in North Carolina, you look out onto those mountains, and you see possibility, and you see humanity right there in God’s natural world. You see such profound beauty. There’s another line in the book where Nikki walks into the library and she sees these art pieces — that really happened to me at the Hendersonville library. They’re paintings, small paintings that have been done by locals, and she says, ‘well, of course they’re painting this area because it’s so beautiful. They have the most compelling subject that any artist could ask for.’ That is exactly what happened to me when I walked into the Hendersonville Library. I walked down the hallway where they had all of this artwork done by locals, and I thought, why go anywhere else and paint anything else ever?

IM: Speaking of libraries, I really loved your emphasis on the importance of libraries and how vital they are to a community. Can you talk a bit about your decision to give the Hendersonville library such a major role in the book?

“There’s only so much you can do online . . . I have real respect for the human-to-human connection that happens in a library.”

DPV: One of the things I did in this book that I’ve been doing more and more of with every book I write is including the local people in terms of telling the story. I worked really closely with Hendersonville residents to try to do this research, and I worked at the library in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I have a real respect for librarians and the services they provide. You can’t just walk into a library and think you’re going to find some obscure historical document without them helping you. There’s only so much you can do online — some things have not yet been digitized, some can’t be digitized, and some things are quite hard to find online. I’ve been in archives where I held a diary in my hands. You can’t hold that in your hands on the internet. I have real respect for the human-to-human connection that happens in a library. I also just love the building. In the book, I talk about the skylights and the plants in the library, and that’s all true. The Hendersonville Library is flooded with sunlight. There are plants and such beautiful book displays. It’s the kind of place where you want to sit and be.

IM: You open the book with a poem called “Our Land” by Langston Hughes. Can you tell me a little bit about the significance of this to the book?

DPV: In my second book, one of my main characters, Hemp, loves to fish, and there’s a line in the book where he thinks about how casting a rod into the Dix River had saved his soul on more than one occasion. He says, “Ah, the irony.” This same land that enslaves him is also the land that heals him. I have always believed in the healing capacity of the natural world. In the book, I’m really trying to connect to this idea of how our connection to the land really is a force that heals us. It’s a force for rejuvenation, it’s a force for community. That’s why I had my main character in Happy Land be a gardener who grows flowers because I was really interested in the endless potential of our encounter with the world.

IM: In the book, Nikki learns about Black intentional communities. You talked a little bit about your research process, speaking to locals, and going to the Hendersonville Library, but was there anything else that you learned while researching these Black intentional communities that really surprised you?

DPV: Some of them were quite large; the one in Tennessee, Promise Land, had over a thousand people and it lasted for decades. I think the thing that surprised me most is that I’d heard of them, but what was so astounding to me was the success of them. They were actually able to become economically self-sustaining agriculturally. It was an experiment that was successful at a time when there was a lot of violence, and there was a lot of real racial intimidation and terrorism. They were able to find a place where they could just live unmolested. I think a lot of us think about Zora Neal Hurston’s, Eatonville, Florida as one of those Black communities. There was a lot that she drew on as a writer and as a cultural anthropologist from Eatonville, but there were quite a few places like that.

IM: Let’s jump right into these incredible characters — we have Nikki, Mother Rita, Luella, Robert, William, Maddie Mae and more. I was so drawn to Luella. Can you talk a bit about forming her character and finding her voice, especially since she is based on a real person in history?

“How remarkable that a Black woman was a landowner . . . it says something about her influence and about their respect for her.”

DPV: I was really captivated by the sight of her name on the property deed when I first saw the deed of the real Luella Bobo for a hundred acres, and she was the owner of the land. How remarkable that a Black woman was a landowner. Of course, it was put in her name on behalf of the kingdom, but I still think it says something about her influence and about their respect for her. They trusted that the land they all contributed to the purchase of would be put in her name. She was the queen of Happy Land and William Montgomery was the king. After William Montgomery left, William’s brother, Robert, became king, and she continued to be queen instead of him taking a new one. We don’t know why it happened that way — we don’t know if she and Robert had an affair. I wanted to play with that possibility by suggesting that one of the things Black women gained when they became free people was the ability to love how they wanted to love and who they wanted to love. That kind of possibility intrigued me. We know that Luella started the school, we know that there was a children’s choir, I believe she had a significant hand in the production of the Happy Land liniment, which was very successful. I thought she was such a remarkable woman in history, and I wanted to give life to her in this book.

IM: She was such a phenomenal character. I really loved reading from her perspective, but I also loved how you framed hers and Nikki’s perspectives, so that they were back-to-back throughout the book. I thought it was so interesting that Nikki is a real estate agent, so she helps people find their own land and their own homes, and doesn’t even know about this rich family history of her own. Is there a specific reason why you made her a real estate agent in the book?

DPV: That was part of it. First, her grandmother calls her down there quite suddenly, and so I thought, if she’s a real estate agent, the grandmother might think, well, she can help me with this land issue. That was me establishing Mother Rita’s motivation. Also, as you said, it means she really understands what property ownership means to people. Thirdly, Nikki is floating around a bit, and she’s not quite sure what she wants to do and what her purpose in life is. In the real estate profession, you have committed career agents who are very well trained and highly skilled, but the profession can also attract floaters like Nikki. They might be someone who is just trying it out temporarily or seeing where it takes them. I thought it was the perfect profession for Nikki because it was one that she could easily take or leave. It wasn’t a passion for her. She got into it because it was an opportunistic moment, but she doesn’t love it.

IM: I’d also love to talk about Mother Rita for a minute, because she is such an incredible character. I found myself laughing out loud at the things she would say more than once. How did you find her voice and what really shaped her for you in the book?

“Mother Rita is every Black elderly woman that I’ve ever known pulled into one . . . it was so important to me to represent this rural woman with dignity.”

DPV: Mother Rita is every Black elderly woman that I’ve ever known pulled into one. She is kind and nurturing, but she’s also sharp and firm. It was so important to me to represent this rural woman with dignity because when we think about country people — and I’m talking about true country people who live in quite remote areas — we have a certain vision of them as being not as fast or informed as city life people. Nikki has that outlook in the book. Mother Rita is an avid reader — she reads all the newspapers that the library subscribes to. She cooks out of all different kinds of cookbooks, whether they’re vegetarian, international, or ones adhering to allergies and dietary restrictions. At one point, Nikki’s surprised that these old rural women know about gluten-free diets, and they’re like, ‘Do you think we live on another planet? We know about all of this.’ These women represent everyone I’ve known who were country women and who were every bit as well-informed and sharp and brilliant as any city dweller. But I also knew that whenever you represent someone of a certain generation, you have to represent them as being of their generation. I was very careful not to push it too much, so she wasn’t too modern. She is that woman that all of us know if we’ve been around country elders.

IM: A scene that really stuck out to me in the book was when Luella is addressing the women in her kingdom and mentally notes a shift when she refers to them all as ladies, which is something that was typically reserved for white women only. It really emphasized the power of language to me and the role it plays in this book. What did writing that scene mean to you?

DPV: I’m so glad you’re asking this question, because when we talk about the kingdom and we talk about them naming a king and a queen, we’re also talking about language. When we talk about them calling themselves royalty, I think a lot of people get caught up in the idea of what a ‘monarchy’ would mean; they’ll ask things like, does it make the children princes and princesses, what’s the lineage, is it a constitutional monarchy versus an absolute monarchy, and so on. What we’re actually talking about is language and the difference that words can make in how these freed people saw themselves. While I was thinking about what women would have wanted at that time if given a set of circumstances where they could ask for things, I thought it would be pretty simple. It’d probably be like good cloth for dresses, because the bad cloth back then was so itchy, uncomfortable and irritating. It might be certain things for their children, like school, schoolbooks, something that would make their children’s lives a little bit easier. It might be something like more power and a seat at the table, because up until that time, the council had been all male. But finally, as you mentioned, it’s respect. It’s being afforded the same kind of respect that any other woman would get.

IM: While I read this, it made me think a lot about Ours by Phillip B. Williams and Sula by Toni Morrison, specifically because of what they do with language, place, and character. Can you share a bit about your influences and what books and authors made you want to be a writer in the first place?

“There’s no genre that I hate . . . my influence has been the world.”

DPV: Well, it’s interesting. I was so influenced by everything. I was influenced by a lot of those 1980s Black women writers, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, Gayl Jones. Growing up, I read everything from science fiction to literary fiction, to Shakespeare, to romance. I read all of that because I just loved stories. There’s no genre that I hate. There’s no literature that I hate. There are only good books and bad ones, but there’s no category that I can say I don’t love. I would say my influence has been the world.

IM: When you aren’t writing novels, you’re teaching. How do you think teaching impacts your creative process? Is there anything that you teach your students that you may have had to remind yourself of on occasion?

DPV: I have to remind myself of everything. I have a list of different techniques for dialogue that my students use, and often, when I’m in the middle of a manuscript, I print out that sheet and put it on my desk next to my laptop. I’ll glance at it to remind myself of the techniques available to me. Everything I teach, I’m also teaching myself. When I read their work — which is often brilliant — they teach me things, too. I never forget the really phenomenal stories that I get in workshop. There are stories that students submitted to me a decade ago that I still remember.

IM: That also speaks to the importance of being a lifelong learner. We’re never done learning.

DPV: Yes, exactly. You always have to have a beginner’s mind because every new project has different challenges.

IM: Lastly, who are you reading now?

DPV: I have a book club! This month, we’re reading The Jackal’s Mistress by Chris Bohjalian. I am such a huge fan of his. He’s the kind of writer that I’ve always aspired to be — someone who has a wide commercial appeal, but who is also just such a phenomenal writer at every level, from the research to the plot line.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.