The devil Junot

Q: Is it vindicating for you to get so much attention for a book that addresses subjects — like America’s involvement in the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic — that have in many ways been swept under the rug?

A: I’m not so sure, I’m not so sure. I think that it’s a hard game. Writing is a very hard game. As a writer, I’m interested — my praxis is all about trying to enter silences, trying to shatter them in some way. But when I get very close to it, and say, “It’s this and this and this,” I kind of recoil. Because part of what makes me interesting as a writer to myself is that I rely on my subconscious to, like, generate the map of the places I want to enter. As soon as I understand it too well, it disappears from sight.

There’s a part of me that knows that, as a writer, everything I’ve written to date has been about exploding accepted, received or collusional silences. But when someone says, “Aren’t you proud?” I’m like, “No.” Because that would mean that I actively set out to break that silence. And it becomes very reductive. I just let my mind go off and find the f---in’ silences. I always think of my unconscious as the difference between having a dog where you just go, “Bring me something. Go!” and it just goes, and it comes back with something and you’re like, “Phat.” Versus having a dog where you say, “Bring me back a f---in’ truffle.” I don’t think that when you’re that specific it’s fun for you or the dog. I’m kind of fascinated by what the dog comes back with. ’Cause I trust, I really trust that … my unconscious is gonna bring me back something interesting.

So yes, I’m very happy that it’s done this, but I can’t claim any credit.

Q: What elements of your success have you been most surprised by?

A: The book’s only been in print a year and a month, so I’m just starting to get a sense of what this might be. It’s not revolutionary, let’s not get it twisted, but one of the things that strikes me is how layered [the book] f---in’ is — the symbolic density and the critical density in a book that feels to me like a very easy read. That surprises me. I’m like, “Well done, asshole. You cost me 11 years of my life, but well done, you f---in’ asshole.” I’m pleased with that and it surprises me.

Q: What about Oscar Wao are you most proud of?

A: That it’s done. It’s not every person who can spend 11 years on a project. I’m just glad it’s done. I couldn’t believe it: I didn’t think I’d have the endurance. It started with 150 pages of Oscar’s life. That didn’t change much from the first week that I wrote it. It was the next 250 pages that were hard.

Q: The novel borrows the language and imagery of comic books and science fiction, which are often unrealistic. Did you worry that that approach would lessen the impact of some of the book’s trauma?

(Pengin Books Canada)

A: I dunno. I mean, people would say that fictionalizing this trivializes it. I mean, everyone feels like they have ownership of a story. There are people who’d say you shouldn’t fictionalize anything about the Holocaust. My thing is, where do we draw the line? On one end, you have people saying they don’t even want us to fictionalize things, because it erases, it minimalizes, it distorts what really happened. On the other hand, there are people who say you can tell a story this way for the same exact reasons. I know that everyone wants to tell you there’s a formula for telling a story. But from what little I understand about language and what little I understand about storytelling, attempting to control it is like trying to restrict the sea from rolling back in. There is nothing you can do. People’s distress, I understand. But in the end, there’s nothing you can do to stop language and stop stories. You can criticize ’em. You can argue about them. I guess my thing, as a writer, is that I’m looking for strategies to tell stories. I’m less looking for orthodoxies and dogmas about how one tells a story. Those are of no interest to me. I recognize them. I’m into them. I’m interested; I often use that energy against the very orthodoxies.

Q: You once said in an interview that the propaganda created by the Trujillo dictatorship was itself a form of genre fiction.

A: I just think that none of this is life. Whether it’s a historical, very serious, very dry account of the Holocaust, or it’s a fantastic, ludicrous parody of the Holocaust, neither of them are life. They’re metaphors for life. The power and the effect that a metaphor has on a person often has almost nothing to do with how the metaphor looks. It has to do with what is the truth effect that that metaphor carries with it. There’s no way to understand how truth effect works. A dry, clinical monograph on the Holocaust might have no truth effect, even if it’s entirely true. A completely fantastic, made-up story about a mouse Holocaust [i.e. Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus] can have more truth effect than that. So what’s the rule?

Q: Now that the film rights to Oscar Wao have been sold, are you concerned with how things will play out on screen?

A: Shit, that’s got nothin’ to do with me. I got my $10,000 cheque. For real: I know nothing about [the film]. Like, everybody wants anything that has something to do with them to be absolutely, stupendously wonderful. But I have plausible denial. It’s not mine. Isn’t that what it’s called in the military, the CIA? I can’t remember what it’s called, but there’s something where you can safely say, “Hey, I got nothin’ to do with it!” I mean, who wouldn’t want it to be the greatest piece of art in the world? Of course! That’s a great fantasy. But the reality is that you know Hollywood: you’ll be lucky if they don’t cripple you, just as collateral damage.

Q: Do you have any say at all in the film?

A: I don’t have any say.

Q: Was that your choice, or was that how it was presented to you?

A: Is it your money? I mean, I think it’s so funny. What artists seem to lose track of is: Is it your $2 million on the table? I mean, I’m very simple about this. If it’s your $2 million on the table, hey man, I think you probably can participate in this. But what choice do I really have when it’s not my money? It hurts artists’ feelings to realize this, but it’s just that simple — it’s not your f---in’ money. And you signed a contract, so it ain’t your f---in’ book anymore. You know? So maybe [the producers] can kindly say, “Hey, we’d love you to participate” — but isn’t that a sop, really?

Q: They could try to placate you, so you’re not out there condemning the movie.

A: Hey, they don’t even care about that anymore. Who the f--- am I? Alan Moore [who wrote the graphic novels Watchmen, From Hell and V Is For Vendetta] is five billion times more important than I am at a public, discursive level, and he badmouths all his movies. [The film studios] don’t give a f---! They’re like, “This is good publicity!”

Q: Do you plan to go back to writing short stories at some point?

A: No! I never wanna write short stories again. They suck. They’re incredibly demanding. A story can be perfect. No novel can be perfect. Novels are awesome. Novels are like us.