Powered by John Boyne's characteristic humour and razor-sharp observation, The Echo Chamber is a satiric helter skelter, a dizzying downward spiral of action and consequence, poised somewhere between farce, absurdity and oblivion. In this Q&A with him, the bestselling author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas spoke to The Penguin Post about his favourite book this year, cancel culture and his advice for finding your voice as a writer.
PP. Please talk a bit on how you went about developing the story.
JB. I decided to take a family who had once been very loving and connected to each other but who had drifted apart because, one way or another, they’re all obsessed with the idea of living their lives in public. George and Beverley, the parents, are a chat show host and romantic novelist respectively, and their relationship, which had once been strong, has become diminished in recent times. Their three children, Nelson, Elizabeth, and Achilles, have their own personal problems and no one to turn to for help because the people who should care about them are endlessly scrolling on their phones. I chose to follow the family over the course of a week, when each of them ends up in some sort of personal drama and see how they would cope when the only support they have are nameless people on Twitter with a ‘@’ before their profiles.
I enjoyed writing the character of Beverley Cleverley, the romantic novelist who hires a ghost-writer to write her books for her. Beverley has little or no interest in literature but takes herself incredibly seriously. Over more than twenty years of publishing novels, I’ve met so many different writers at literary festivals and it’s easy to tell the difference between those who are real books people and those who just like the idea of being a writer and are more engaged with the attention that comes their way than with the writing itself. To her credit, however, Beverley hates the divisive terms ‘literary fiction’ and ‘popular fiction’. Her books are squarely part of the latter, but she definitely considers herself to be part of the former.
PP. There are a lot of contemporary issues that you cover in the book – addiction, gender identification, ‘woke’ culture – is there one thing, in particular, which you hope your readers will take away from the book?
JB. I think we have to be careful about using the word ‘woke’ as a pejorative. In its original conception, the idea was that society should become a more equal place, with the voices of those who have been historically disenfranchised given amplification. However, that has turned into a derogatory term by the right-wing of society, possibly because wokeness as a concept has been hijacked by people who claim moral superiority to others and use social media to denigrate and attack anyone who does not agree with their opinions. I hope readers will see that a life lived online is not a life at all, that it’s mostly a waste of time, and that political activism cannot succeed in 280 characters. People say ‘Be Kind’ on Twitter but the people who say this are always the most aggressive and combative people of all. It’s time for us to practice that in day-to-day life rather than just employ it as a mantra.
“We have to stop judging each other with such ferocity.”
PP. If you could change anything about modern society, what would it be?
JB. That people would stop being so judgmental about others and treating anyone with a different opinion as a monster that needs to be annihilated. So much of modern society takes place online where there seems to be very binary opinions of people – you’re either good or bad, morally upright or just a terrible human being – and life is not as simple as that. We have to stop judging each other with such ferocity. Too many people online actively seek to destroy the lives, careers, and reputations of complete strangers. It’s a terrible way to live. None of us are perfect and yet there’s this expectation that we must watch our every word or risk ‘cancellation’, a disgusting word in itself. As if a human being can be ‘cancelled’. We’re not a television programme or a train service.
PP. Where do you draw creative inspiration from day to day?
JB. These things are generally a mystery. I read voraciously and I write every day and I think when your mind is constantly engaged with fiction, you become better at producing it. I’m an observant person, I think, and stories present themselves to me regularly just in the act of living my life. I keep notebooks filled with ideas, most of which will never come to anything, but there’ll always be one that grows more and more interesting to me and that will become the basis of a novel.
PP. What’s been your favourite read so far this year?
JB. Joseph Knox’s True Crime Story is a hugely original piece of work. The reader is never entirely sure whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. It will certainly be among my favourites of 2021. I’ve also recently discovered Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, five long novels about a family that starts just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and I’m enjoying them immensely.
PP. What advice would you give to someone trying to find their voice as a novelist?
JB. Read a lot, write every day, and join a writing group. It’s essential to be giving your work to others and listening to their thoughts on it, both positive and negative. Also, you learn so much from reading the work of other students in the class and learning how to discuss it, recognising what it is and isn’t working. Writing isn’t meant to be put in a drawer and forgotten about; it needs an audience.
The Echo Chamber is out now. Read an extract.
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