AK: American teens comes across as particularly oblivious and self-centered in Chinese Gucci. Even if they “give a shit” about the environment or social justice, they come across expressing their caring in extremely self-centered ways. Did you recognize that the characters could be dismissed as “unlikable” when you wrote the book? HM: To me, this is a byproduct of culture. There are ways to emerge from youth with a healthy, genuine curiosity, a sense of right-and-wrong, and on the way to being a fully formed and empathetic adult. . . but, man, that needle takes some fucking threading! So much of life, both online and in the real world, is muddied by this country's liquid values. Kindness and responsibility are treated as some kind of filthy blight, while cruelty, "gettin' mine," and this fuck-everybody mentality run roughshod over our blood-soaked streets. Violence is an epidemic, yet it's treated like a solution in every dumb-ass exploding action flick. . . instead of what it truly is: a deeper and more desperate complication of any situation. This culture of the self, especially the utterly lost and ignorant, unknown self, simply isn't sustainable but, like most of America's problems, now seems too big to solve. And the sad truth is, if you're writing the great American novel, you can't ignore the terrible undercurrents in this culture. So, yes, I knew those were all unlikable things. . . but they were, for me, true things. . . and hard truths tend to sting like that.
AK: Your novel taps into how stupid consumerism is, how we want a name on our purse or jacket regardless of the product’s quality. And it captures, to some extent, how stupid American consumerism helps feed the global economy. People have jobs in Mexico, China, Vietnam, everywhere, because affluent people—increasingly everywhere from coastal China to Tokyo to urban Europe and North America—want overpriced name-brand stuff. Was this all on your mind before the novel took shape? HM: Yes, that's really the overarching metaphor for the whole book. Our insatiable desire not just for shit, but the most expensive shit, fuels economic desperation on a global scale. Kids working in brutal factories so corporations can squeeze out every bloody cent of profit, middle men wedging their doughy asses in between the labor and the slathering consumer, plus a worldwide ad campaign that convinces everyone they are worthless unless they have everything. . . even when we know they'll never stop making more stupid gimcracks and idiotic sundry. . . and still we buy the lie that it somehow will add up to happiness. Again, this feels like a thing humanity probably cannot escape. It's got its meat hooks sunk too deep in our fragile hearts. AK: If you were to “cash in” with this novel—sales, movie rights, the works—how would you change your life? What would remain the same? Is there anything you certainly would change? HM: Well, it won't—for a couple reasons. Most immediately because there's no such thing as "cashing in" as a writer anymore. But for the world-famous names, the idea that anyone can make a career writing what they want exactly how and when they want to is pure fantasy. Even fairly "successful" writers, established genre writers, can't make so much that they're comfortable. . . and certainly not make enough to write what they want, for years and years, without needing to publish something else. I mean, I know I am pretty damn far from the epicenters of publishing. . . but I truly don't see how anyone does it anymore.
The second reason is the book isn't a 4-quadrant hit with something for everyone. It's really only going to work for a very select, very tiny slice of readers. It's an uncomfortable read from the first sentence, and it hopefully churns the same complex feelings that writing it did. As an overall experience, I don't imagine it's a crowd pleaser. But if the Safdie Brothers or the Coen Brothers or some Hollywood megastar decided that Chinese Gucci was their next movie, I'd pay down my house and set up my kiddo for college. If it was enough, then I'd definitely quit work, and build a writing/painting/art studio. . . and do that as my "job" instead. I'd certainly travel more—if travel is even a thing in the future. Everything else would hopefully stay the same.
AK: Tune in Friday for the final section of L.U.S.K.'s Hosho McCreesh interview.
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