Barton Allen Stewart is the author of the novel The Contraption. His other books include Painter of the Heavens. He lives in Massachusetts.
Q: What inspired you to write The Contraption, and how did you create your characters Audrey and Matthias?
A: The Contraption is a realistic fictional depiction of what can happen in cases of cult recruitment and brainwashing. Cult psychology and tactics have been a subject of informal study of mine for decades. Not that I pore over it daily, but I keep abreast of developments and try to support cult education, like with the International Cultic Studies Association and Steven Hassan.
The subject is one that I discovered through the news, long ago, and I have always found it fascinating and concerning.
I have also been writing literary fiction for decades! So, The Contraption is the marriage of my two main intellectual interests. I seem to have themes of undue influence and coercive manipulation running through my fiction.
Another novel I have is Painter of the Heavens, which deals with a con man and the woman who is ambivalently involved with him. It is another psychological study of a controlling personality and one who is (not entirely) under his spell. It's available only on eBook at present, on Amazon.
My first book was a collection of short stories in the style of Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone, called Tales of Real and Dream Worlds.
I also have a novel that I am keeping in reserve until I can get some kind of handle on the business side of all this, or at least the promotion of books.
My novel The Year of Cannonhills deals with an idealistic young man who is dropped by circumstances into a corrupt, rotten little town controlled by old families who are straight out of the Dark Ages. They begin working on this guy’s head, not to give it away.
The two main characters of The Contraption were intended as regular rank-and-file people who are caught up in an outrageous assault on their lives from a sadly typical cultic group.
Church of the Mountain of Radiance has learned of Audrey’s jewelry collection, and it is worth just enough that they decide she belongs with them. She is specifically targeted for recruitment, which doesn’t usually happen. More often it is a random thing from online chats or a recruitment team on the street.
Audrey is an intelligent, strong-willed person, and gets taken in by the scam anyway. I bust the myth that only stupid, weak people end up in cults. Her fiancé, Matthias, knows virtually nothing about cults, like most of us. But he learns.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Well, you could say I have been researching this novel since the 1980s! It is the product of my long-term readings of scholarly works on the subject, dozens of memoirs of former members, and conversations with people who have been in, or lost someone to a cult.
Frankly nothing surprises me anymore about the subject. Except possibly the continuing avoidance and denial of the whole matter by society at large. People are fascinated by cults (as evidenced by the profusion of documentaries streaming at any time) and at the same time they are scared stiff by the whole thing. I think it just hits a little too close to home.
I wanted The Contraption to be a compelling, character-driven literary novel first, and an educational tool for the study of cults second. And that is how it has turned out.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: No, it took on a life of its own as I wrote it. I like fiction that has the roller coaster effect. I set the stage and then the ride begins. Though a roller coaster has only one track, and this thing is veering off all over the place. Only just so much of it was in my mind going in.
This book has some very suspenseful scenes, but it is not gory or hyper-violent. The sex scenes deal with the emotional side of it, as opposed to anything graphic. It is, in some respects, a love story; but a story of separated lovers.
The cult has changed Audrey’s name and relocated her to another state. It was all very abrupt. Only weeks before their wedding, Audrey suddenly vanishes from her previous life. Matthias weighs forgetting about her and moving on, but decides he wants to find her, and just talk to her one more time.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title was one that reminded me of certain psychological thrillers I have seen over the years, and I thought it had dramatic power.
But it actually derives from a character Matthias meets along the way in his search for Audrey. He meets a cult researcher, who has studied the subject for many years, and who has written a book about it. This character has a term for mind control. He calls it – the Contraption.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am hoping to get a better handle on the business side of all this before they nail the lid down on me. It really has to be the most dysfunctional excuse for a business on Earth. John Steinbeck said, “The profession of book writing makes horse racing look like a solid, stable business.”
Aside from that, I have been weighing a sequel to The Contraption. Though I don’t see the point in writing anything else if there is not going to be a realistic chance of building a readership. People who have read me love my work, but there is no way to reach new readers, or stand out in the tsunami of new books.
Writers’ groups spend years on polishing and re-polishing manuscripts to some sort of perfection, but nobody ever deals with what happens next – the business of getting that perfect book in front of some readers.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I could say that at a bare minimum I want to meet and discuss the business side of things with other writers at my level of the game, maybe through Zoom.
I am not a hobbyist, I have four books under my belt, and I am dedicated to this. But I am an indie, going it alone, which makes it impossible to achieve decent sales figures.
The best bet seems to be joining up with a few other writers and setting up a co-op, to divide the labor and expenses, get breaks on prices through combined purchasing, and lose the dreaded indie label. (It isn’t dreaded by me, but radio talk shows and podcasters won’t consider me for interviews because I’m not with some big publisher.)
Any writer who feels they are ready for prime time and wants to talk about the feasibility of a joint venture can drop me a line at bartstewartwriter@gmail.com. And thank you, Deborah, for this interview.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment