In “The Naturals,” your story in this week’s issue, a man named Caperton goes home to visit his father, who claims to be dying, though Caperton is somewhat skeptical. The story revolves around the nature of storytelling, and a lot of its humor derives from the idea that, these days, everyone is a storyteller. How do you see that in contemporary society? And do television and advertising executives have narrative envy, directed at fiction writers?
Television and advertising executives don’t envy fiction writers. Television executives give them some occasional work—that’s all. I guess part of this story stems from witnessing how, with some of the increasing vagueness in job definitions, people have come to rely on storytelling or the idea of creating narratives as a catchall. My dentist is a storyteller, weaving a narrative from my bloody gums. My accountant uses numbers to tell a story about my debts and the threat of ruin. Sadly, my barber doesn’t say squat. I’d welcome a story from him. But it’s also an intrinsic part of sales these days. You don’t just buy some jam or a loaf of bread or a chair or a car. You have to hear a whole story about how the product came about, often a tedious tale about how somebody quit the rat race (after making a mint in advertising or data mining or manufacturing weapons) and discovered an old family recipe and then made friends with local farmers and woodsmen. Or a team of engineers got together and asked themselves one simple question. It’s always one simple question. Never a series of complicated questions. The jam is usually great and the chair well crafted. The car is a gleaming wonder. But the narrative angle gets annoying after a while. I prefer the closed course, a professional driver, and an indie rock song that used to be important to me pumping through the speakers.
Not only is Caperton not sure if his father is dying, he’s also not sure if he wants to have children, or even what he’s so angry about. Is the source of Caperton’s unhappiness—his Belt of Intermittent Sorrow—specific, or is it more of a culture-wide malaise?
I’ve always found that the cultural malaise and the personal rage feed nicely off of each other. One fades a little, the other picks up the slack. Very symbiotic.
The Rough Beast of Bethlehem, a pro wrestler Caperton meets on the plane, seems to offer a different kind of father figure from Caperton’s real father. What is his wisdom?
I’m not sure it’s wisdom our hero can use, but I guess it amounts to this: no emotion or insight is too small to inflict on the world. Let it all fly. Don’t let it eat you from the inside.
If you weren’t a writer, could you see a certain appeal in being a “free-range cultural consultant,” like Caperton?
Yes, but I’d probably refer to myself as a storyteller.
