PHYLISS: Ayre. Welcome. I guess, just—Why? And why now?
AFD: Thank you so much, Phyliss. I have always admired your powers of translation, your inter-species work especially, and I'm honored that you found my little project worthy.
Why, the answer to why, is I guess death. Its imminence and therefore eminence.
PHYLISS: You look perfectly healthy, in fact quite lovely to me, darling. Tell us what happened.
AFD: As I lay out in the cascading epilogues, my oncologist
PHYLISS: Miss Thing
AFD: Yes, Miss Thing, the son of a butcher, who is actually looking great lately himself. He laid out for me in a phone call how I would basically become disabled on my new oral chemo regimen, increasing physical and mental disability, for a period of two years.
PHYLISS: At the end of which time
AFD: Yes, after that he said he could not guarantee that he'd be able to keep me alive. So, Phyllis, things seemed to get real at that point and it didn't take much reflection at all to realize that I better take care of business now, not later.
PHYLISS: How long did it take you to write that initial, fevered draft of GOT OFF EASY? And had you planned it all out, or
AFD: Six weeks. Pretty much I just made a list of the stories I wanted to tell, and then I started writing.
PHYLLIS: Tell whom if you don't mind? You are famously single, childless and totally ok with that.
AFD: I started thinking about dead ancestors, even ones with lots of kids, a war hero even. I've always found it frustrating not to be able to know what their lives were actually like. My grandfather, for example, his father published his war letters and told some anecdotes about him, but that was it. What was his life like. What were his uncensored thoughts. No one who is alive remembers.
PHYLLIS: Maybe no one ever knew.
AFD: Exacto.
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PART II: Coming Soon
"My Personal Narrative Arc: Is It Really Anybody's Business?"
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