The cafe interview: novelist and actor Karen Kondazian

by Art Kusnetz

The Petaluma River was rising and the rain and wind made the old railroad trestle beneath our window tremble. I was glad we were inside and warm as I sat with actor and author Karen Kondazian. We were talking about her novel The Whip, which chronicles the life of Charley Parkhurst, one of the best “Whips”—stagecoach drivers—that Wells Fargo ever had. Upon his death, a great secret was revealed, he was a she!

As we ordered our café fare, I asked what first drew her to the story of Charley Parkhurst.

“I first discovered Charley in the 1980s. I immediately felt connected to her and her story on a very personal level. I can’t explain it except to say that I felt like a channel, a voice for Charley. Certainly the dialog flew out of me like I was channeling her, but then I really feel that artists are channels. That’s what actors do, that’s what writers, painters and sculptors do. I was the modern voice for Charley. And what I got from Charley’s life is that everything is on loan in our lives— even the people we love. So always remember to say goodbye. The key to the ending came to me during meditation when I realized she didn’t want to die alone.”