Photo by Maddie Kauffman
In line with its promotion of literature and the arts on campus, the Bowers Writers House hosted New York Times bestseller Jason Mott during the week of Sept. 9, 2019.
During his time on campus, Mott held writing workshop sessions for students interested in learning more about his craft as an author. Mott’s visit then culminated in the lecture he gave on Friday, Sept. 13 in the Brinser Lecture Hall. In this lecture he shared his own work and discussed common questions he gets regarding his career as a full-time author.
The timing of this lecture was apt, given Mott’s willingness to focus on supernatural and unsettling themes in his writings — the mythos of “Friday the 13th” embodies core tenants of what Mott’s work often explores, such as the modern application of folklore.
This appreciation of the supernatural is related to the genre Mott primarily works within: “magical realism,” otherwise referred to as “high concept.”
Mott defined magical realism as it relates to his own work as having “stories [that] take place in a world that is 99% like ours, but that 1% that’s off changes the dynamic of how people interact and how the world exists…what changes in the world depends on what subjects I want to talk about.”
When asked about where he drew inspiration from, Mott made note of how his writing drew upon “The Twilight Zone” and how it “changes the world by a few degrees to allow for a conversation you normally wouldn’t have.”
Mott said he sees folklore as having particular significance in his work, especially when it comes to the subversion of typical narrative expectations. Through the use of high concept magical realism, Mott is able to repurpose common mythology and common struggles in a way that is uniquely captivating.
“If you go back far enough in my body of work, it all deals with taking known mythology and ideas and reinventing them,” Mott said. “Folklore is how we figure out the world. It always has been and it always will be.”
Mythology, according to Mott, is changing form in the contemporary discourse. He said he particularly sees this in the rise of superhero stories as well as in the rise of conspiracy theories. When it comes to superheroes, he said he feels that their role is more straightforward: “Superheroes are our contemporary mythology. Superheroes help us discuss things that we don’t know how to talk about yet.”
However, when it comes to conspiracy theories, Mott said its role in the current mythos is one being achieved through “negative means.”
“Conspiracy theory is the new mythology, and I find that to be very interesting and strange,” he said. “We all like to feel smart, and we all like to believe that we know something that no one else knows. Conspiracy theory fills that gap in very nicely.”
While Mott said he is concerned with the rise of conspiracy theory, he also understands that “it creates a space where things are not-known again. I think maybe the human brain needs that space…[otherwise] the world seem[s] very flat and self-contained.”
“Nobody wants there to be gray areas anymore, but almost nothing is like that,” Mott continued. “People want all the answers, they want it to be simple.”
Magical realism and high concept fiction allow for the exploration of these gray areas in an accessible and unique manner. The characters in Mott’s novels and how they react to the introduction of supernatural phenomena serve as commentaries on how people, broadly, react to the unknown.
While the ways in which people will react to new and stressful situations vary, Mott noted that in his writing “the individual is always a stand-in for society.” He continues, saying, “The individuals in my novels usually function outside of society. We use outsiders to talk about ‘the insiders.’”
Mott’s work digs into what it means to be human but does so through the use of symbolism and narrative themes that allow for a richer exploration of issues intrinsic to the human experience.
