Entertainment
How Novelist Sequoia Nagamatsu Creates Realism in Fantasy Stories
Too often, our conversations pit realists against idealists, or even pessimists, as if each type of person is made of entirely different stuff. Sequoia Nagamatsu's work negates and challenges such strict taxonomy.
Take, for example, “City of Laughter,” the second chapter of his acclaimed 2022 novel-in-stories. “How far in the dark we go.” Set, along with the rest of the book, at the dark intersection of a global plague and climate change, this particular chapter follows the employees and patrons of a theme park who usher terminally ill children to their ends with distraction and fun .
The chapter is sad. The chapter is almost unbearably sad. The chapter conveys the kind of sadness that makes you put down the book, step out into the afternoon sun, and walk around your neighborhood until the tears dry.
And yet Nagamatsu spreads grace, dignity, and even vicarious joy through this and every chapter, weaving the kind of deeply human moments that only surface in times and places of heartbreak.
For Nagamatsu, writing the world as it is means embracing the contours of fantasy. And becoming a true realist means holding fast to one's ideals while dealing honestly with anything that seems hopeless, in the same way that true black absorbs all colors.
Next week, Minneapolis-based Nagamatsu will make another visit to Unbound Book Festivalconvening a conversation with keynote speaker Emily St. John Mandel.
More:'Station Eleven' 'Sea of Tranquility' Novelist Emily St. John Mandel to Cover Unbound
Writing a pandemic novel before the pandemic
“How High We Go in the Dark” is a marvel, both in terms of the moving phrase and in the construction of Nagamatsu’s world. Roxane Gay, a literary figure no less, called the book “a beautiful meditation on how everything in this world, no, in the universe is connected.”
The novel reflects a certain melancholy inherent in Nagamatsu's work. Its interest lies in the people who work something, he said in a recent interview. He appreciates authors who approach difficult themes with a lightness of being, but his manager asks him for something else.
“If there’s sadness, if there’s chaos in the world, I lean into it,” Nagamatsu said. “I want to understand how people navigate this space.”
Looking around, he sees enough evidence for hope. It also observes real-world circumstances and characters that seem far removed from the plots of dystopian fiction.
“I think I would call myself bullshit, quite honestly, if I wrote a happy novel,” Nagamatsu said.
The festival conversation with Mandel will feature two authors who wrote great fiction about the pandemic before the COVID-19 pandemic was known. Mandel's “Station Eleven,” which Nagamatsu considers the standard-bearer for character-rich pandemic novels, arrived in 2014.
And “How High We Go in the Dark” evolved over many years, through iterations. To complete his work, Nagamatsu hired a younger version of himself, at the intersection of style, skill and vision. His older, more experienced self paid homage to the younger and rounded out the book by adding and removing chapters to get the story through to the end.
Editing the manuscript during lockdown gave Nagamatsu “something to do while a lot of other people” were questioning the very arcs of their lives, he said. Creative work brought desired structure to otherwise formless days; but sadness naturally interrupted the process.
“Some days I just couldn't work on all of this, because you open the news or go on the Internet and basically my novel is there, in reality, happening in real time,” Nagamatsu said.
His characters have become “confinement comrades”, he says. Guiding them through a made-up pandemic led him to ask better questions when it came to reality.
“What kind of teacher, what kind of writer, what kind of person do I want to be the opposite of?” he said.
The process of imagining and reimagining led Nagamatsu to useful thoughts about how community and empathy are our best chance against climate change. And living off the page, he spoke to his friends more often than in “normal” times, he said.
When the book launched in 2022, Nagamatsu initially felt defensive about the “pandemic novel” label and the implications that might come with it, he said. But he negotiated a peace treaty with conditions; In tough times, some readers want to escape while others want to get closer to the problem, he said. Nagamatsu sees how his book offered something to this last class, to readers who are very much like him.
How far does Nagamatsu go from here?
Nagmatsu's upcoming novel also draws on deep roots from the previous story “Girl Zero.” He sees how the work follows and derives from “How High We Go in the Dark”.
Said to write as he speaks, with a slow, almost Zen-like quality, the book will of course retain that voice. And, in terms of literary approach, this work will also live in beautiful interval spaces.
“I will always be the kind of writer who plays with genre to some extent,” Nagamatsu said.
More:11 names to know as Unbound Book Festival releases full lineup ahead of April event
The next book, however, will take a more “traditional” novelistic form, and the story is more intimate than that of its necessarily sprawling predecessor. Nagamatsu will introduce readers to a smaller group of central characters, he said.
When considering how an existing work might continue to live in the world and develop into something previously unheard, only one question really matters: “Am I interested enough?” Nagamatsu said.
This interest will likely take him in other directions after the release of his second novel. He anticipates an inevitable return to his “first love,” the short story, and expresses his desire to see where the exploration leads.
Nagamatsu will appear alongside Mandel Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Missouri Theater. Discover the full festival program on https://www.unboundbookfestival.com/schedule.
Aarik Danielsen is the Tribune's features and culture editor. Contact him at [email protected] or by calling 573-815-1731.He is on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen.
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