What inspired you to write EULOGY?
EULOGY started
quite innocuously, more than ten years ago. On a Sunday afternoon, walking home from
enjoying time at a cafe with friends, I became obsessed with the mental image of a boy
and his father going to an amusement park, but the trip is neither fun or amusing,
something is not right about it.
I started writing that scene – if only to purge it from my mind – but it wouldn’t go
away. I needed to know who these two were. Who was this kid? Who was this man? What
was their story? What happens to them?
I wrote their story so that I could know it. Their image no longer obsesses me, and
I’m glad for that.
Is this book in any way biographical?
The events are not biographical, nor are the people in it. The central struggle about
religion has resonance to my life, however. I grew up in a house where we attended
churches that preached the bible as a literal document and that were always looking
for the end of the world. On the television we had a constant stream of
televangelists, and they had all the answers, until I realized the answers didn’t work
for me.
So one of William’s central struggles matters to me personally: How do you relate to
the world when you come to realize that the beliefs in which you were raised are not
acceptable to you? Rejection alone is not enough. You need to find your own way.
You write a serious story, yet there are many instances of humor in the book. Why
is that?
I never try to be funny, and I don’t like making fun of anyone, but people are
sometimes amusing just as they are. Take an intriguing character — like William’s
mother, Janet Oaks — and give her the keys to an old beat up car and a conviction that
she can get rich and be happy as long as she sells more Slender Nation, and just write
what happens. The scenes are serious, but what the people do along the way is funny.
The humor makes the sadness of the story all the more poignant.
Why is the main character so isolated and why does he try to harm himself?
I think William’s self-harm is best understood as him acting out on himself the
emotional violence of his parents’ marriage. They are constantly at each other, and
they place him in the middle of their battles, and their tug of war becomes something
that he takes on as his own. As he moves away from them – at first figuratively in
adolescence, then literally as he goes to the city – he retains that violence within
him and the need for pain is the result.
As for his isolation, I think it is linked to the isolation of the home in which he
grew up. He doesn’t necessarily like being alone, but it’s what he knows. Like many
people, he takes comfort in something familiar which is not necessarily something he
wants. If you look at the scene in the book when William first finds religion, in that
moment he is genuinely happy to be among people who want to be his friend. It’s a
fleeting moment, his euphoria doesn’t last.
Do you think the parents in this book are a fair representation of parents from
fundamentalist households?
It would be too simplistic to call them representations of parents from fundamentalist
households. They are simply people who are struggling in life and in their marriage,
and with limited skills or willingness at their disposal to deal with their
challenges.
They like the answers the church gives them; they like the certainties it professes.
What are your thoughts about fundamentalists around the world? How is
fundamentalism affecting the world we live in? What traits do they all have in
common?
I think it’s important to acknowledge the obvious and that is, first and foremost,
each unique fundamentalism believes that it is uniquely right, and that all other
paths are wrong. This is cause for concern when different fundamentalisms encounter
each other or non-fundamentalists. It’s a serious issue on a planet with 7 billion
people, of many backgrounds and beliefs.
The other thing that all fundamentalisms have in common, and this may seem
controversial to many people, is that the fundamentalisms are all populated by real
people. We cannot dismiss billions of people because of their beliefs, much as we
should not be forced to build societies or countries that reflect their beliefs. It’s
a tricky balance when dealing with groups who believe they are authoritatively right,
but life is difficult, so that’s nothing new.
They are humans, and have the human trait of being hard to understand. I do myself a
disservice, along with my community and my world, if I dismiss someone I cannot
understand as a mere whackjob. And when fundamentalists turn to violence, it is all
the more important to see these as the acts of a human (whether Christian, Muslim,
Jewish, or any other belief). Their humanity makes the violence all the more tragic.
People want to dehumanize criminals, it makes them easier to hate, but that doesn’t
help anyone.
How does fundamentalism affect children?
Children are likely affected more by the dynamics of their home than the religion in
which they were raised. People who are raised in loving considerate homes find easier
adjustment to life than those who grow up in acrimony. In my book, William is dealing
with his own problems and the tensions between his parents and through this he is also
dealing with the religion. But the greatest influences on his behavior are his
parents, and their abuse of each other, and not the religion he left behind.
Every child grows up believing for a while that the world they know – the picture on
the wall, their room, their home (or homes), their friends and their community is all
that there is to know in the world. But the child who grows up in the fundamentalist
home is to a certain extent asked to believe that much of this illusion really IS the
entire world, to believe that the fairy tale is true. The teaching is along the lines
of “What our religion tells you is all you need to know; don’t be deceived by those
who tell you otherwise.” This is in high contrast to, for example, the home where a
child is encouraged to be open and loving to the possibilities of life and the many
cultures and beliefs that exist, as opposed to being fearful and mistrusting.
This self-segregation of a fundamentalist home will need to be faced by everyone who
is raised there as they encounter more of the world. At some point, each person needs
to choose whether they believe in what they were raised in, or if they are going to
find another way to relate to the world. That’s universal no matter how you are
raised, but there’s an added rub for the fundamentalist, because the fundamentalist
child is usually raised cut off from the rest of the world.
I imagine that for some children, growing up like this works out just fine, but it
didn’t work for me, and it doesn’t work for the fictional William Oaks. Of course,
William’s case is a little different. He is not raised in the religion, but finds it
as an 11 year old as a way to fix his problems as well as those of his parents. It
works for them but, in the end, not for him. You can see the novel as a story of his
heartbreak that this religion that promised him so much magic did not deliver.
A writer and teacher of creative writing, Ken Murray is publishing his first
novel, EULOGY,
with Tightrope Books in 2015. Prior works have been published by Prairie Fire, Globe
and Mail, Mendacity Review, Brooklyn Rail, Ottawa Citizen, Canadian Business Magazine,
Maclean’s, and the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (through the
Random House of Canada Student Award in Writing). While earning his MFA at The New
School, he also trained as a Teaching Artist with Community Word Project and taught
with the organization Poets House. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including
the inaugural Marina Nemat Award, the Random House Award, and an Emerging Artist’s
grant from the Toronto Arts Council.
Originally from Vancouver, Ken grew up in Ottawa and has lived in various locations
across Canada, and also New York City. He now divides his time between Prince Edward
County and Haliburton Ontario, and teaching at the University of Toronto School of
Continuing Studies. Beyond reading and writing, he can most often be found dabbling in
various sports, or doing broadcast work with 99.3 County FM in Prince Edward County.
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The controlled and calm life of William Oaks is shattered when his parents die
suddenly in a car accident. A reclusive paper conservator at a renowned Toronto
museum, William must face the obsessions and denials that have formed him: delusional
family history, religious fundamentalism, and get- rich-quick schemes. Memory and
facts collide, threatening to derail his life and career as William feverishly
prepares for an important exhibition on the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Read an
Excerpt
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