The Infinite Future by Tim Wirkus

With a feeling akin to falling into a Wikipedia hole, Tim Wirkus’ debut novel, The Infinite Future, dives headfirst into the many ways in which a story can affect the human condition. With a crass, yet self-reflective style, Wirkus depicts the constant changes that stories have on our everyday interactions by using characters that are constantly reflecting on their own personal histories and relationships throughout a story that revolves around a quest for the long lost novel by an elusive, could-be-crazy, pulp science fiction author.

Something like a reflection on Plato’s cave with a literary tilt, like Wirkus is playing a game of telephone with himself.

This book takes the meta-narrative to the next level. With a heavy nod towards obscure sci-fi, Wirkus creates the most elusive author possible to ignite a hilarious, yet insightful romp through Brazil, Idaho, and the universe, of course. Tim Wirkus wields a humor that rings of Vonnegut, but simultaneously digs at character like Joyce. This book is for the literary that isn’t afraid to classify Isaac Asimov or Philip K. Dick as Literature.

This epistolary journey begins in the author’s foreword as he depicts his encounter with an old colleague from his undergrad years at BYU that “looked like the (Orson) Welles at the end of The Lady from Shanghai, hollow-eyed and shaken.” The author’s initial antipathy towards Danny, someone unknown beyond his love for power pop, is soon overcome by curiosity when Danny hands him a manuscript of a mysterious Brazilian sci-fi author named Eduard Salgado-Mackenzie. Wirkus takes the translated version of the text (containing Danny’s own hefty translator’s note) with understandable reluctance (one in a line of many reluctant readers of Salgado-McKenzie). Patience eventually gets the better of him as he is eventually enchanted by the author’s strange and lasting impression.

From there the novel evolves into personal histories layered upon personal histories revolving around Danny, a hermit librarian, and an excommunicated Mormon scholar. Rife with farcical encounters, Danny’s self-deprecating voice sets an atmosphere that is skeptical, yet faithful all at once, making an impressionable and passive character that is drawn into a journey to look for a book and author that may or may not exist. This is where Wirkus really excels — in his ability to turn a book into the most active character of the novel. The novel’s tiny facets and the interactions that each of these characters have with the book leave you hanging in suspense while laughing at the misfortunes of their curse of knowledge. Their relationships with the Adventures of Captain Irena Sertorian constantly change and fold over on themselves as every discovery is made. This all culminates to the point where you actually get to read the novel by Eduard Salgado-McKenzie, a sci-fi story that becomes closer and closer to you as the story moves on, leaving you to search for some meaning that could be seen through the Translator’s Note, only to realize that the story within the translator’s note was the story all along.

The Mormon-heavy locations chosen by Tim Wirkus is something known to him — and it shows. Religion is a strong motif throughout Infinite Future; an identifiable sensibility that is obviously very near to him. This book is a clear investigation of the ways that we interact with stories and he portrays this via his own experiences with Mormonism. Danny’s character is a Mormon that defines himself as a “more laissez-faire [Mormon],” one that, “may be very devout, but they also compartmentalize their Mormonism to a much greater degree.” This sort of clear reflection can only come from his own experiences with religion and appear to argue for a story’s ability to inspire and move people.

The Infinite Future reads like a science fiction novel that, instead of relying on space and fantasy to propel the story’s wonder, has Wirkus tap into the absurdity of the world we already live in as the catalyst. In fact, when I finally got to read the interstellar sci-fi novel, I found the novel’s obscure laws and rituals oddly familiar. This novel succeeds in blurring the lines between literary and genre fiction, a trend that has been observed in books like Robin Sloan’s Sourdough and Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan. The result brings together an intriguing narrative that tests the limits of our imagination and Tim Wirkus displays this with a wit and humor that forces our focus on the quotidian strangeness of our lives.

Tim Wirkus has written a novel that will make a lasting impression on our perception of language and the written word. By comparing the abstract world of science fiction with the inane world that we encounter every day, Wirkus has given literature new life. From the author’s fictitious preface, to Danny’s unexpected quest in search of an elusive author, to Captain Irena Sertorian’s quest across the universe, Tim Wirkus’s greatest accomplishment is making fiction feel more connected to reality than ever before.

The only fallback that I’ve come across is the sheer headiness of it all. Wirkus has provided a social commentary on the imbedded nature that stories have in our lives, and that is no easy feat, in that any critical dissection of the affect that story has on us, especially one that is done with a story, will be convoluted by nature. The result becomes a rabbit hole of stories within stories within stories, and this had me looking back to fact-check and remind myself of who was relaying whose monologue.

The Infinite Future is genre-bending, witty, and leaves the reader with a new lens on the absurdity that we confront every day. In one fell swoop, Wirkus has crafted an argument for every stories’ place in the universe, all while crafting a story that is page turning and hilariously human. By using a pulp genre as the glue that holds the story together, we receive a poignant reflection of the ways in which we craft and receive information. The Infinite Future holds the key to the next generation of fiction and, from here on, I’m never going to find a story without thinking about the endless connections that they create between us and the world we inhabit.

What We Talk about When We Talk about Talking to Squirrels: On Elizabeth McKenzie's The Portable Veblen

The Portable Veblen is like it sounds, which is to say you don’t know what it is until you get to know it better. Because The Portable Veblen is near impossible to say with grace, and your mother will ask you to repeat it, “The Por-what the what?” although it will come to make sense with a sort of twisted logic: the novel’s protagonist, Veblen, is a thirty-year-old Alice in the Wonderland of Northern California who dares to ask of you, “Do you think wishful thinking is a psychiatric condition?”

Elizabeth McKenzie’s third book (and second novel) follows the eponymous Veblen as she hurtles toward marriage on a sort of whim. Her fiancé, Paul, is a neurologist with a flashy new invention—the Pneumatic Turbo Skull Punch (how Vonnegut-ian)—that lands him a government contract. But the device is rushed to market when there’s profit to be made, and ethics are challenged, and commitments are challenged, and maybe Veblen and Paul have rushed things after all because how much do they really know about each other?

It’s true, Veblen talks to a squirrel: an ally nesting in the attic of her house and Paul’s near-comic nemesis. And to Veblen, the squirrel talks back (sort of).

McKenzie is unparalleled in making her characters’ neuroses palpably real and ultimately important, angling a keen eye to the role of mental health in life. Veblen, who can empathize with the last lima bean on the plate that gets scraped into the trash, is forever “living in a state of wistful anticipation for life to become as wonderful as she was sure, someday, it would.”

Beneath its rom-com surface, The Portable Veblen exploits the hypocrisy of health and healthcare when economics is involved. As satirical as Vonnegut, McKenzie’s touch is light and effective, hinting at class clashes and culture clashes and morality clashes (oh my).

But most of all this is a story of love and family, chosen and otherwise. Veblen’s mother is a brilliant yet hypochondriacal loon, an irrepressible intervener, a woman who named her daughter after an obscure (but actually not so obscure) Norwegian-American economist, Thorstein Veblen—Thorstein coined the term “conspicuous consumption.” While (our) Veblen’s father is an institutionalized burden of a man, an absent yet still undeniable presence in Veblen’s life and legend to her mental health.

Then there’s Paul family. Paul’s mother and father are weed farmers, loving hippies but, in Paul’s eyes, unreliable parents. His developmentally-disabled brother has overshadowed Paul’s own independence, an unwitting saboteur since childhood, and since childhood Paul has done his best to extricate himself from it all.

McKenzie’s prose dances in those spaces where these repressed and dysfunctional emotions are dancing apart:

[Veblen] formed this estimation in faith that it would be so, because that was what she wanted, a family at ease, a family free from the heat of a central beast, traveling through vents to cook you in every room.

The sensitive and nuanced handling of the intersections of family and love and disability is nothing short of brilliant.

The Portable Veblen is not just one thing: not just a satire, not just a rom-com, not just a novel about talking to squirrels. It is all these things at once. But at its heart is love, the bleakest and most optimistic and strangest thing there is, the most squirreliest nut to crack. And isn’t that what we talk about when we talk about love?

An Interview with David Corbett

David Corbett’s new book on craft is a thought-provoking read that is sure to become a favored resource for writing students and established novelists alike. The Art of Character forces the reader to think introspectively and draws upon a variety of fictional works, both written and performance-based, to create as three-dimensional a character as possible. The result is a method that is intelligently organized and well-executed; a method, in fact, that was originally tested in a university setting. David Corbett’s first foray into nonfiction reflects the full weight of his many years of writing, with the authority of a thoughtful and observant novelist.

David Corbett was kind enough to sit down and answer a few of my questions, shedding light on his new release, The Art of Character.

Diana Tappert: When developing The Art of Character, what were the first few elements that you were sure you needed to touch on? How did you narrow down these essential elements?

David Corbett: I actually first formulated the content that would evolve into The Art of Character while teaching an online class through UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program. With an online course you have to write out your lectures, obviously, and this was the first time I had to put my ideas into some kind of systematic format.

It became clear pretty early on that there were four major areas to cover:

Conceiving the Character
Developing the Character
Adapting the Character to a Dramatic Role
Rendering the Character on the Page

Once I had that, I could see the general arc the class — and subsequently, the book — should take.

DT: When reading The Art of Character, I noticed an eclectic mix of television, film, and book references. Everything from The Borgias to Macbeth makes an appearance; how did you decide which example would be the most illustrative of your points?

DC: It’s ironic, but since finishing the book I’ve often slapped my head and thought: “Wait, I just thought of a much better example than the one I used!”

My basic methodology, to the extent I had one, was to use examples from all three media — fiction, film, and TV — to underscore the fundamental unity of purpose and execution in the rendering of character across the board.

I also wanted to follow certain examples throughout the book — Macbeth, Blanche Dubois, Jake Gittes from Chinatown, Walter White from Breaking Bad, Kathy Nicolo from House of Sand and Fog — to provide a sense of continuity in the instruction, while also branching out with other examples to show the universality of many of the principles.

That said, I often just sat at my desk, scratching my head, thinking: “That’s a great idea. Now, where have you seen it in practice?” Sometimes it took a while for the answer to bubble up from memory. A very, very long while.

DT: As an author, lecturer, and editor, what was your goal in writing The Art of Character? Did you see a distinct lack of characterization guides in the current literary market?

DC: My goal was to return character to center stage, rather than as an adjunct to story, which has gained the upper hand with so many writing guides being written by screenwriters (Syd Field, Linda Seger, William Ackerman) or former story editors in Hollywood (Christopher Vogler, John Truby, Robert McKee).

Virtually all of these writers agree that story not rooted in character is at best facile, at worst just “one damn thing after another,” and yet I’ve found the discussion of character in their work often lacking, precisely because they focus largely on dramatic roles rather than a detailed, sophisticated exploration of the psychological, emotional, and moral subtleties in the human personality.

That said, I also believe, like all these writers, that the depiction of character works best in a dramatic rather than descriptive mode, which many aspiring writers of “literary” fiction, prizing language over action, often miss. My background in acting spared me this misconception. Not that I’m inimical to the depiction of inner life, but I feel thought and feeling work best in service to decision and action, because our actions engage us with the world and commit us to the consequence of our convictions in ways thought and feeling simply do not.

DT: Do you follow the strategy designed in The Art of Character when characterizing your own novels? Conversely, is it predominantly based on your own writing method?

DC: The second question first: I’d say the book expands on my own methodology.

In my introduction to the book, I refer to it as a toolkit, and advise students to use only those “tools” found in its pages that are necessary for the job at hand. I never use all the tactics I describe in the book while crafting my own work, but in my most recent novel I found myself often dipping into my own advice for guidance.

Some things I believe are fundamental—external desire and inner yearning, adaptation, vulnerability, secrets, contradictions. Others are helpful, some almost mystifyingly so, in conjuring the character more vividly: fear, shame, pride, quirks or bad habits, familiarity with death, relationship with food. Some necessitate your seeing the character in the context of her larger world: work, neighborhood, family (especially siblings), politics, faith. I explored all of this while developing my characters, with an eye for defining, emotionally traumatic episodes in their lives. And my newfound understanding of roles helped me craft the dramatic arc of the story more effectively and creatively.

DT: Regarding the title “Creating Memorable Characters for Fiction, Film, and TV,” would you say the characterization process differed a great deal when comparing the three mediums?

DC: The major difference is that fiction affords access to inner life. But since I believe this often becomes more a crutch than an advantage, I find the process quite similar regardless of medium. One has a great deal less time and space in film and TV to define the character — which requires a discipline all writers need — so discerning which actions are the most definitive and dramatic is crucial. I think much of the background work in characterization remains the same; deciding what to include, what to leave out, requires perhaps a greater capacity for “murdering darlings” in film and TV than fiction, but less is more for a reason: You’re trying to engage the reader or audience, not drown them in detail.

DT: Do you hold anything particularly close as an inspiration for characters in your fiction? Did you draw from these when writing The Art of Character?

DC: As I noted above, I consider five things essential in the depiction of any major character: the connection between the external ambition and the inner yearning; the way the character responds to frustration of their desires (conflict); what makes the character vulnerable; what potentially life-altering secrets does she bear; and what contradictions does she exhibit. I also think exploration of key moments of helplessness in the character’s past — moments of fear, shame, guilt, pride, joy, love — open the character up in ways nothing else can. I also seek to understand how her physical nature affects her interaction with others, and what her social demands and standing are in the home, the workplace, the community. Once I have a decent grasp of that, I’m ready to write.

DT: What did you find hardest when writing The Art of Character?

DC: Coming up with not just acceptable examples but truly instructive ones.

DT: If you could change anything in The Art of Character, what would it be?

DC: Oh what a miserable question to ask a writer. To paraphrase Mark Twain: If I’d had more time, I would have made it shorter.

DT: Where do you see your writing going in the future? Would you consider writing another book on craft?

DC: I’ve just completed a new novel, I’m working on a story that is waking me up at nights (a good thing), and I’ve been contacted on a script doctor job by a Hollywood producer. I’m also currently developing two other craft books, one on the connection between character and structure, and the other a deeper examination of rendering characters on the page, with special attention to subtext in emotionally complex scenes.