Photo by Clark Hsiao
Yannick Murphy is the author of the new novel Things That Are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really. Her other books include The Call. She lives in Vermont.
Q: What inspired you to write Things That Are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really, and how did you create your character Dead Man?
A: We have three children who all entered the Navy, and they’re all great storytellers. I was able to learn from them what submarine life was like, and I also learned what life could be like for submariners when they transition to the civilian world.
Even though it’s peacetime, that transition can be rife with complications because a submarine is such an insular world where social interactions and responsibilities are on a different level than what civilians experience.
Our children often relay submarine stories that are hysterically funny, but they’re also told in tandem with other anecdotes that can be serious and sad.
The bond of shared humor that sailors often have seems like a way to survive that pain as well as survive the tedium of endless drills, and the pressure of always having to be in a heightened state of operational readiness.
In the book, on the submarine, Doc asks Dead Man, the narrator, to spy on his friend Tintin because the ship’s brass suspect Tintin of being a spy for China. Dead Man is torn between doing what he's asked to do and facing the consequences of insubordination.
The inner turmoil of Dead Man refusing to betray his friend, and the added tension when the submarine seriously engages with the Chinese near the South China Sea, which further escalates when another friend of Dead Man goes missing after a swim call off the side of the submarine, provides for a sequence of events that test Dead Man and give the reader the chance to see how he would react in such situations.
Everything that happens on the submarine still haunts Dead Man even when he leaves the Navy and goes to college.
The character Dead Man evolved because I wanted to explore a character who is still straddling these two worlds – a turbulent Navy life and a college life where he’s older than most of the other students and doesn’t fit in.
I also wanted a character who was completely honest and whose speech was realistic. It gave me the chance to show, rather than tell, who he was, so the reader could decide for themselves what the effects of being on a submarine were on Dead Man, and how it shaped his relationships in the civilian world.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: In the book, I focused on this irony of having a constant hum of humor even when there are serious life-altering situations and emotions taking place because I believe this provides for an inherent tension that is at the core of storytelling.
The title is also a window into who Dead Man is, a young male character whose experiences can be harsh, but who manages them with his constant sarcasm and wit.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I read a lot about submarines, and I’ve toured a couple, but more importantly I listened like the proverbial fly on the wall whenever my children started swapping submarine stories.
Oftentimes, they speak using so many acronyms that their father and I have to interrupt to get clarification, although that is often met with eye rolls, and not direct answers. It’s the secret language of the deep, that not everyone is privy to.
What I learned that was surprising is that there are more planes in the sea than there are in the sky, meaning that a pilot is more likely to be shot down than there is a risk of a submarine being attacked.
Submariners like reminding people of this fact anytime someone says they would never be caught dead on a submarine.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book described it as “[t]he rollicking, sometimes frightening, in-the-end surprisingly moving evolution of a submariner into a mensch.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think that’s an accurate description of how I wanted Dead Man to be perceived at the end of the novel; however, I strove for the character and actions to speak for themselves, without having the reader think that they were being told how to feel or react to the events and the plot.
I was miserly in terms of explaining Dead Man’s emotions, as I hoped the meagerness could be transferred into a sort of radiance that was evident throughout the book as a whole.
It’s accurate to say that it’s an evolution of a submariner, as it’s a coming-of-age story of a young man who goes straight from high school into the submarine force, and then when his time is up in the Navy he tries to navigate life as a college student.
The irony of it all is not lost on Dead Man, who realizes that almost everyone around him is younger than he is, but they’re also more adept at socializing with other college students than he is.
The experience he gained while on his big steel tube of dumb proves to be irrelevant on a college campus, leaving him adrift, while at the same time he is haunted by his submarine buddies of the past whose troubles add to his own.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I wrote a corollary to an earlier book titled The Call. The Call is about
a horse doctor in Vermont, which is written as entries into a call
log.
This new book, The Summer We Were Lost in Space, is the corollary to The Call and it will be published by the same publisher of Things That are Funny on a Submarine But Not Really.
The Summer We Were Lost in Space revolves around the same family described in The Call, but it’s a different story. I loved the characters in The Call, and I wanted to spend more time with them.
The new book is based upon a murder that takes place in the town. The wife of the veterinarian becomes more of the central piece of the book, because now the log entries aren’t her husband’s, but hers. I felt like this wife has things to say.
I’ll soon be working on edits of The Summer We Were Lost in Space with my editor.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Thank you so much for the interview!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
.jpg)
