Hypertext Magazine asked Connor Coyne, author of Urbantasm: The Dying City, “Why are stories about Flint, Michigan important to the outside world?”
By Connor Coyne
I was extraordinarily lucky. My father was one of the last few at GM to retire before wages and benefits fell through the floor. My parents moved to the suburbs when I was twelve and while I thought that was pretty lame, I got a quality education and got to go to the college of my choice. I grew up at one of the last moments when Flint was able to provide this kind of future for at least a few of her children.
Many of my friends were not so lucky. Some of them ran away from home or were kicked out on their own. One of them ended up sleeping on the floor of a flop house for months at a time. Another bounced between grandparents, terrified about what would happen if his family found out he was gay. Some of my friends grew up in houses where violence was routine, where you’d be just as terrified of your parent as you would any kid at school, where you’d seriously worry about one parent killing the other while you were gone for the day. And almost all of my friends (me too!) worshiped several of their teachers, even while other classrooms were left unstaffed. Even with an entire novel, I can’t tell half of the stories of what my friends went through in Flint. Some of them have come to look back on their experiences with some fondness. But a lot of them try to avoid the subject.
In terms of its relevance to outsiders, many of Flint’s social and economic problems are a microcosm of those facing our nation as a whole. Flint has a long history of entrenched discrimination against African-Americans and other minorities. The city has grappled with a local, state, and federal government that has too often subverted democratic processes and silenced our voices. Too often the solutions of the present follow the same flawed logic as the failed solutions of the past. Yet here we are, a generation after we enjoyed the highest median household income in the U.S. with a poverty rate of 40%. Because Flint’s fortunes have been so closely tied to those of the automotive industry, we have become a canary in the coal mine for much of the rest of the country. Which is why, to cite a well-known example, so many cities are now re-examining their water distribution systems, and many are learning that they are in a state of decay. Flint’s stories strip away the turf of American exceptionalism and expose the bedrock of economic and cultural forces that form our country today, as well as those they ignore or discard.
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Connor Coyne is a writer living and working in Flint, Michigan. His first novel, Hungry Rats has been hailed by Heartland prize-winner Jeffery Renard Allen as “an emotional and aesthetic tour de force.” His second novel, Shattering Glass, has been praised by Gordon Young, author of Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City as “a hypnotic tale that is at once universal and otherworldly.” His essay “Bathtime” was included in the Picador anthology Voices from the Rust Belt, and he has authored a short story collection: Atlas. Connor’s work has been published in Vox.com, Belt Magazine, Santa Clara Review, Moria Poetry Zine, East Village Magazine, Flint Broadside, Moomers Journal of Moomers Studies, The Saturnine Detractor, and Qua. You can view a complete list of his publications here. Connor is on the planning committee for the Flint Literary Festival and in 2013 represented Flint’s 7th Ward as its artist-in-residence for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Our Town grant, documented at Intersect 7. In 2007, he earned his Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the New School. Connor lives in Flint’s College Cultural Neighborhood (aka the East Village), less than a mile from the house where he grew up. To interview Connor or receive a review copy of Urbantasm: The Dying City, please email Darcie Rowan at darcie@darcierowanpr.com.
