Rebecca Doll
Rebecca Doll and James Gordon are the authors of the novel 2033: The Year Things Fell Apart.
Q: What inspired you to write 2033, and why did you choose that year as the book's setting?
A: Like most people, we're concerned about the future of democracy and tolerance in the US and the West. At the same time, we didn't want to write a polemic about the current US election and candidates.
The story is a bigger one than any individual. It's not about who wins in 2024 or 2028; it's about where this all eventually goes and how the US, Europe, and the rest of the world address the challenges of crisis and fascism. In many ways, it's as much a story about France or Germany as it is about the US. It's about how the rise of fascism affects individuals.
By moving the action to 2033, we move beyond the immediate cycle. We don't have to embrace the idea that any specific party, politician, or group has all the right answers because, probably, they don't. Our focus is on the known wrong answers. Avoid the wrong answers, and eventually, we'll find the right ones through civilized discourse, trial, and error.
James Gordon
Q: What differences (or similarities) do you see between today's political world and that of your novel?
A: It would be silly to say we aren't driven by clear concerns in today's political world. It's hard to look around and not feel threatened by intolerance and fascism. But we tried to avoid a one-to-one correspondence. It's different people and different situations.
If there's one striking similarity, it is the underlying concept that it is not allowing white nationalists to participate in the open political system that results in disaster. We saw a microcosm or foreshadowing of that with the Jan 6 attacks in the US.
The whole fascist agenda is to drastically change or abolish the system they rode to power so they can retain power for a privileged minority. But most people don't want that. Most people just want a little personal security for themselves and their families, and they support fascists because they promise that.
When fascists reveal that their agenda can only be accomplished through intolerance and cruelty and are, inevitably, forced from power, that's when a crisis may occur. And minority rule is a historical possibility.
Q: How did you create your character Em?
A: Em is very much a picture of a lot of our friends. She's nobody in particular; she's an "Everyone." Competent, maybe a little self-focused and short-sighted. She's just trying to get a decent place for her family to live. So, there are little parts of her that represent a lot of people we know.
We wanted someone with reason to be a little complacent, not a crusader out to change the world. But she's not a selfish or bad person either. She's just someone who grew up expecting what society promised and is finding it just out of her reach, and so she's frustrated by that.
We wanted someone like us. Someone authentic who had the problems we hear our friends talk about or that we've experienced but was by no means cut from "heroic" cloth.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: If there is a takeaway it is that we are all a part of history. If you live in a privileged society, you are insulated from that. But tumultuous times come, and if we don't take action early, we may find that bad things happen to us down the road.
At the same time, there's an element of hopefulness. We can take control of our own situation if we choose to, and the later we make that choice, the more dire our choices may be.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: We're working on a sequel to 2033: The Year Things Fell Apart, tentatively titled 2034: The Summer of the Civil War. In it, we want to explore more than just the simple contrast of white supremacy and fascism versus "everything else."
We want to look at what happens to regular people when a complex society collapses. We want to take a more nuanced view of what it means to resist, how appropriate various types of resistance are, what necessitates force, and what the costs are both to people and society.
I hope it's clear from the writing of 2033 that this is not some "zombie apocalypse" fantasy. It is heavily informed by real examples, case studies, and stories from history and abroad. And I think we want to continue that.
We hope that by letting people see what a systematic collapse would look like in the US, we can give some keys that may help avoid it. Eventually, we want to carry that through a third and final novel that explores some of the paths to healing and rapprochement in a ruptured society.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: It's worth saying that we present a very realistic look at some things that could happen, the product of research, not just random invention. But these things are not inevitable, and this is a cautionary tale, not a prophecy.
We realize that a lot of people who are initially inclined to pick this up are going to see it as “preaching to the choir,” though maybe it will help them deal with existential dread by framing out what the future may look like.
But we hope it is the sort of book that can eventually be handed to the friend or family member who doesn't understand so that they can come to say, "Oh, I see, yes I can see why this is all a problem."
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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