Rage against the machines

NZ Herald -  Saturday Jan 28, 2012 - Stephen Jewell

Left - Anthony McCarten. 

AnthonyMcCarten didn't intend to write a follow-up to his novel Death of aSuperhero when he embarked upon his latest work, In the Absence of Heroes. But after coming up with the premise for a story involving a triangleof characters, it dawned on the Gloucestershire-based New Zealander that he hadalready created three ideal protagonists in the shape of Jim and Renata Delpeand their elder son, Jeffrey. Set some time after the death of the Delpes'youngest son, Donald, In the Absence of Heroes finds the trio retreating into their ownseparate computer-generated fantasy worlds as they struggle to come to termswith his premature passing.

"I originally came up with anentirely independent idea that ostensibly required a father, a wife and ason," recalls McCarten, 51. "Then I realised I had already inventedthem in the last book so I thought I would try and see if I could marry the twotogether and it was a natural fit. It added so much more because I couldexplore aspects not covered in the first novel, which was pretty preoccupiedwith its central character.

"I knew they were a family that wasn't connecting with each otheras they had been cast into a state of grief and isolation from each other inthe aftermath of Donald's death. It was the perfect setting to justify thisdisconnect between all the characters."

Death of a Superhero saw terminally ill Donald delving intothe testosterone-fuelled world of comic books. This time, the internet andonline role-playing games initially provide 18-year-old Jeff and his father,Jim, with some solace in In the Absence of Heroes.

"One of the pleasures of writing both books was being able to playwith different ways to tell a story," says McCarten. "I stumbled uponthis journey with Superhero, where I couldalmost jump tracks in the narrative across to another level of reality butstill pursue it as a story with allegorical meanings. The reader would imputewhat I was trying to get at and then jump back to the main story. Thatbinarism, which I've been interested in playing with as a narrative device, ishopefully even more fitting in this book, which is about computers and whatthey're doing to our own lives."

According to McCarten, the internet has had a detrimental impact on ourlives. "I'm not a computer game person but I'm really interested in thehold it has on popular culture," he says. "If you go into my localBlockbuster, you used to be faced with a wall of new movie releases but it'snow almost entirely given over to computer games while movies have beenghettoised to the back corner."

As the father of two teenage sons, McCarten worries about the wideninggap between the generations. "I'm very aware of the changing face offamily and the shift in parental roles that's going on. In the old days, yourkids would go and play in the playground, but now they're disappearing wheneverthey've got an internet connection into games of mass murder.

"What's the long-term significance of this going to be? Kids havealways played with guns, but the veracity of these games and the fact youbecome so immersed in them is disturbing, and the simulation of killing andbeing killed is incredibly realistic."

But the net is all around us, as McCarten demonstrates during ourmeeting at a Notting Hill brasserie by pulling out his iPhone to check hisemails. "It's like a tidal wave," he laughs. "It's taken outevery village and we're all drowning in it. It's now considered sociallyaggressive if you're not connected; that there must be something wrong with youif you don't have a smartphone, an email address or a Facebook account. We'reall being dragged under by this tsunami."

Rest of story at the New Zealand Herald