TC BOYLEThe American satirical novelist talks islands, egomaniacs and Gaelic football
The thesis of your latest novel, 'When The Killing's Done', is that mankind is justly and inevitably doomed. Correct?Absolutely correct. What hope is there? We are seven billion large apes living on a small planet with dwindling resources. Everything we have in Western society is built upon a capitalistic premise, which posits infinite consumers and infinite product, in a finite universe. So ask yourself, could that model possibly be sustainable?
I read it back-to-back with Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom'. In different ways, both books suggest that, if life is to survive on this planet, some pretty hard-nosed decisions will have to be taken.I must admit, I haven't read Jonathan's book yet. Immediately after finishing When The Killing's Done, I commenced work on a companion piece, San Miguel, which just went to my publisher yesterday. It's set on the most remote of the Channel Islands, off Santa Barbara.
You're fascinated by islands, aren't you?I was given a great book recently, The Islandman, by Tomás Ó Criomhthain. It's an account of life on the Great Blasket Island. I don't know. Maybe I feel lost in this crazy word of modern technology and it is comforting for me to reduce things to that level. But I've become more and more interested in dramatising events within small island communities with small groups of people.
Agatha Christie set her books in hermetically sealed mansions and train carriages. It gives you a defined cast of characters, I suppose. I hadn't thought of it that way but, yes, I really like that comparison.
You've recently completed a trilogy of books about what you call "the great egomaniacs of the 20th century". That's right, the first two were scientists, John Harvey Kellogg, and Alfred C Kinsey. The most recent was about Frank Lloyd Wright. It was the first time I'd written about a fellow artist. Narcissistic personalities are attractive to me. You'll find this difficult to believe, but I've even known novelists to be like that.
You live in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. That must be an intimidating place to redecorate?Of course. He couldn't stand the idea of people living in his houses and changing things around. He designed everything: the linens, the crockery, even the clothes the housewife should wear. It was an obsessive/compulsive god reflex that all of these guys shared.
It's not that surprising to find out that Frank Lloyd Wright and Alfred C Kinsey were flawed characters. But I would never have pegged the inventor of Corn Flakes as a tortured genius .. . All of the details of that absurdist romp [ The Road to Wellville] are true. Kellogg had an enema machine. He had operations to remove a little loop of his intestines. He was one of those narcissists who doesn't regard anyone else on Earth as having any value whatsoever, except they are part of his regime. These guys were all of the Progressive Era. They believed in the perfectability of man. They had a desire to improve themselves and live forever. As a Darwinist, I would query whether that is either possible or desirable.
As a novelist, you seem to reject the maxim of only writing what you know.Absolutely. I would recommend writing on a subject you don't know and learning something about it. Researching San Miguel, for example, I travelled out to the island with biologists and learned about their work there. If there is a foundation to my aesthetic it is that anything can be a story. I've always felt free to write on any topic I choose.
As a reader, it's always fascinating to pick up a book set in a world I know nothing about.Sure. I think that goes for a good many of us.
But when an outsider attempts to describe a world I know a lot about – Gaelic football, say – I often find they miss the point entirely.You know what, I once wrote a short story for the New Yorkercalled Swept Away.It was inspired by a single line I read somewhere, which stated that the Shetland Islands were the windiest place on Earth. So I did a bit of research and strung together a folk tale about it. After it was published, The Shetlandermagazine got in touch. They said it captured the essence of the place and wanted to know how long I'd lived there. So I think a good artist is able to seduce you into seeing his vision and making that real. I mean, [Jorge Luis] Borges never went anywhere. He lived entirely in his mind.
Rimbaud wrote 'Le Bateau ivre' without having ever seen the sea. Kafka's Amerika. . . there are lots of examples. But I should thank you, you know. Because I've just finished a book, which means pretty soon I'm going to be searching about for new ideas. I might just write something about Gaelic football.
The craft exhibition Modified Expression, which includes work inspired by TC Boyle, continues at the National Craft Gallery, Kilkenny until October 12th
