Future viewing audiences have become totally desensitized to violence and entirely dependent on sensation to escape their boring workaday lives—an addiction nurtured by the media with graphic portrayals of war and crime and with so-called reality programming. Now, TV execs in pursuit of the only things they care about—higher ratings and bigger paychecks—have created the ultimate reality show: Seven people, each bearing the scars of his or her past, are deposited on an island in the middle of Lake Superior. Given some bare necessities and the promise of $400,000 each if they can endure, the three women and four men risk death by starvation or freezing as the Great Lakes winter approaches. The island is wired for sound, and flying drones provide the video feed, so everything the contestants do and say is broadcast worldwide. Their seven-month ordeal is entirely unscripted, they can’t ask for help or they forfeit the prize, and as far as the network is concerned—the fewer survivors the better.
PHIL HARVEY s fiction has appeared in fifteen literary magazines, including Phantasmagoria, which nominated one of his stories for a Pushcart Prize, and Antietam Review, which named another the winner of its annual contest. Most recently his work has appeared in The MacGuffin, Natural Bridge, and the Dos Passos Review.
Harvey nonfiction includes: Let Every Child Be Wanted, which drew praise from former President Jimmy Carter; Government Creep, which, as one reviewer noted, proves that government has invaded virtually every nook and cranny of our lives ; and The Government vs. Erotica, which Publishers Weekly and Booklist praised, the ALA Intellectual Freedom Roundtable nominated as the year s best book on intellectual freedom, and Media Coalition called a frightening, enlightening story.
By day, Phil Harvey is president of DKT International, a nonprofit family planning and AIDS prevention organization, and president and majority shareholder of Adam & Eve, a mail-order business that sells sexually oriented books and films. He lives with his wife, Harriet Lesser, in Cabin John, Maryland.
Author Q and A
Q: Your three new books are collections of short stories
in which characters touch something important in themselves or in others.
PH: The centerpiece of my fiction is always the
individual. I like to put characters in demanding
physical/psychological settings that force them to respond. Frankly this saves
work and imagination because some responses are fore-ordained. Other ideas come
from experience. Fly fishing. Sex. Upbringing. And so on. Some ideas even
spring from other books. Really, the stories run the gambit. A few end in
death, one in time travel, a few in redemption.
Show Timeengages with seven people and their
idiosyncrasies, lust, belligerence, and desire to survive. How they are
attracted to each other, how they fight with each other, how they sometimes
undermine and then strengthen each other. They boil, they confer, they fight,
they make love—but overall, they must survive.
For all my characters, life goes on but is changed.
Q: Tell us about Show
Time. The novelchallenges seven reality show contestants with the
possibility of starvation or freezing to death.
PH: My book explores the use of violence and
death as entertainment. We already have real-world examples like the potential fatal
violence that helps fuel the popularity of car racing. We like violence. It
fascinates us. That’s why it leads the news every night. My idea is that
policymakers someday will, perhaps without knowing it, encourage certain kinds
of violence to keep people satisfied. Presidents like wars—even though they
won’t admit it. Wars unify us. We always support the troops. So deliberate
steps to encourage controlled violence are not so farfetched.
Q: Your fiction is occasionally threaded with darker
impulses. Why delve into the shadow side?
PH: A wise writing instructor once said,
“People don’t read nice. It puts them to sleep.”
I write dark-side fiction because that’s
the only kind people read. I am not especially interested in venality, violence
(which I really do not like), human
weakness, etc. but these are essential elements of fiction. Of course we’re all
fallible, and some of my fiction reflects this theme.
In Show
Time, the producer arranges for a murder to happen on the show because her
entire focus in life is on her ratings. Nothing else matters. We humans can get
blinkered that way and occasionally take desperate measures to keep things on
track. That’s true reality. But overall, I write in this vein because it is
artistically satisfying and readers demand it.
Q: In Beena’s Story an
Indian woman is disfigured by acid, in Virgin
Birth a surrogate mother is attacked, and Show Time explores personal and social violence. How do you address
violence without becoming graphic?
PH: Writing that is too graphic turns
people off. Different readers (and writers) have different limits; mine are
probably about average. Some would say I’m too cautious but bodies run through and
guts spilling out simply seem unnecessary and distracting. It comes down to a
matter of style. A very clear case is the “cozy.” There’s always a murder but never a body.
Q: These three new books include one that has a more
erotic tone yet you don’t shy from sexual activity in stories that aren’t
specifically erotic. Is there a line here, too?
PH: As to sex, I think I provided the
appropriate amount of detail in Show Time
and, very differently, in Vishnu Schist,
Swimming Hole, and Devotional. Sex scenes can be sexy, even
graphic as in Devotional, but clichés
must be avoided like the plague. In
Charlie Stuart’s Car got a little close to that, I think. I’ll let readers
decide.
Q: How do you align your dark fiction with your Huffington
Post article about the world getting better?
PH: The reality is that dark impulses,
especially violence, will always be there. The world is getting better in part because
we are learning to curb our natural violent instincts. We sublimate by watching
violent sports. Boxing. Football. NASCAR. We punish. Murderers and rapists are
jailed. And so on.
Backing this up must be the rule of law. People
are capable of unspeakable horrors. And that includesnice, civilized people. See
the enforcers of the Holocaust. See Uganda. See North Korea. The fact that the
government has a monopoly on legal violence (wars, executions, etc.) is a good
thing. The great majority of citizens want violence curbed, and only a
governmental entity can do that consistently.
So, yes, humans will always love violence
(see video games), and in the societies that function best, violence will be
sublimated. Hence my novel Show Time.
Hence my short story Hunting Dora.
Q: You support the rule of law but some of your stories
demonstrate abuses of power. Should readers beware authority?
PH: No society can exist without rules that
prevent people from harming others. But the government can be a poor purveyor
of justice. Where’s the justice in the War on Drugs? Where’s the justice in taking (by force) billions
from hardworking taxpaying Americans and giving it to rich farmers and
agricultural corporations? And on and on.
The government is necessary for some
things, and I appreciate that. An army. Rule of law. Enforceable contracts. But
it is not such a stretch to depict the government as complicit (behind the
scenes!) in a brutal scheme to satisfy Americans’ lust for violence as in Show Time. Readers should worry, because
government’s perfidy is backed by government force. The worst perpetrators of
violence have been governments. Stalin. Mao. Hitler. Pol Pot. Dystopian fiction
is perhaps popular because in the digital age it seems more feasible. Big
brother is watching.
On the other hand, people are generally
very good about making decisions for their own lives. Over two centuries or so we’ve
seen that life can be pretty successful and satisfying in democratic, free
market societies. That’s why messy democracy is so terribly important.
Q: What’s the takeaway for readers of your fiction?
PH: I would hope they have journeyed to a
place they would not have seen without the novel or one of the stories…that
they experienced it and enjoyed being there, became engrossed, and had the
pleasure of a good read. I always welcome emails with serious and thoughtful questions.
I invite readers of Show Time to think
about the complexities of violence. Perhaps this is worth considering: “War unites
us. Love divides us.”
Q: It’s interesting that some of your stories revolve
around activists. Your own efforts range from philanthropy to utilizing social
marketing to distribute birth control, yet some of your characters view
“do-gooders” with sharp cynicism.
PH: We compassionate humans so love to
think highly of ourselves that we do “good” things without using the brains god
gave us. For a decade the U.S. sent huge amounts of grain to India. Result:
Indian farmers couldn’t make a living, Indian agriculture stagnated, Indians
were generally worse off than they would have been without our “help.”
Doing stuff that feels good instead of
stuff that will acutely help is something I really abhor. Feel-good giving is
self-indulgent and occasionally cruel. It’s great to feel superior to that
panhandler on the corner, so give him a dollar (and assure the future of
panhandling) and think how morally superior you are. Whatever you do, don’t think about how you could actually be
helpful. Not emotionally satisfying!
So the cynics in my stories are right, only
it’s not really cynicism. It’s clarity. It’s intellectual integrity. If you
want to help people thenempower them
to take control of their lives. And don’t expect gratitude. You’re doing your
job; they’re doing theirs.
Q: What’s next for you?
My most promising novel is Just In Time, in which a Wall Street
trader is deposited back in the Pleistocene era. The other, Indian Summer, follows a Peace Corps
volunteer’s transformation fighting famine in India during the 1960s. I plan to
write more short stories focused on the transformative powers of sex and
alcohol.
As for myself, I will continue enjoying my married
life, being a stepfather, and nurturing my very promising grandkids. And, of
course, I’ll continue organizing projects that promote civil liberties through
the DKT Liberty Project, work to end the War on Drugs, and debunk yahoos who
ignore the reason and science behind immunization and the genetically modified crops
that can relieve suffering worldwide.
Author Promo
Review: This book instantly consumes you with it's chilly atmosphere. The characters are well written, the plot is gripping and the author's writing style is very unique. I highly recommend this to horror and thriller fans...it'll keep you on your toes until the very last page!
