JDD. Does the current political climate in the United States inspire you for future novels?
Benjamin Whitmer. If by “the current political climate” you are referring to the presidential election, it neither inspires nor interests me, except for the entertainment aspect. I have always liked the quote from Honoré de Balzac: “I am part of the opposition party. » This is my position regardless of who is in power. As a writer, I believe that it is essential to resist the moves of political institutions and parties.
You describe a very dark America, are you surprised by the assassination attempt on Donald Trump?
No, I’m not the least bit surprised. We live in a country awash in guns with a national mythology based entirely on violence. Combine that with limited mental health resources and a minimal social safety net where most people feel like they’re living in a pressure cooker, and add candidate demagogues… I’m still surprised he didn’t do more assassination attempts. It gets worse.
Do you still believe in the American dream?
I’m not sure I ever believed that, at least as an adult. Most people I know struggle. No matter how hard they work, they never progress. Most people are one or two checks away from absolute ruin. The American Dream is a story for rich kids so they can claim to have earned the benefits they inherited. The US has a rigid class hierarchy.
What do you think about gun ownership in the US? And what is your relationship with guns?
I have a complicated relationship with guns. I’ve owned guns my whole life, but I’ve also seen the consequences. One of my best friends went through a mental crisis and was killed in a police shooting. My next book project is about guns, so I carry one with me everywhere I go and spend a lot of time at the shooting range with Trump voters – who are decent people, as far as I’ve seen.
I love to shoot. I find it meditative and I feel better with handguns which are hard to use well. It’s funny. But if I could snap my fingers and make every gun in America go away, I would—as long as that included those carried by the police—and I would find another hobby. But that’s not the real world. This is magical thinking. The only possible and effective gun control would involve massive confiscation of the 400 million guns already in circulation, which would lead to civil war.
“I stopped counting the number of friends I lost to suicide and overdose years ago”
Our problem with guns is a symptom of something much deeper. Most gun deaths in America are suicides. They are connected to the epidemic of deaths of despair that we see emerging among the working and middle classes: overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, suicide by other means, etc. I stopped counting the number of friends I lost to suicide and overdose years ago. America is a failed state for many people.
What is your relationship with France?
France is the place where my entire writing career and artistic life takes place. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m grateful for it every day. My editor, Oliver Gallmeister, gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life: complete creative freedom. I can cover topics that no mainstream publisher can. On my last trip, the first thing he said to me was, “Welcome home.” This touched me deeply. I don’t want to be presumptuous, but in a way France feels more like home than my own country, because France is much freer than the United States .