Macromere Press

Macromere: And then we came to the end. 

David: Of another dull and lurid year.

M: That may be true, but we meant the end of He Who Shall Remain Shameless, specifically the final episode in the novel, “Katherine”, which takes place on New Year’s Eve and continues to New Year’s Day. 

D: The continuation to New Year’s Day is debatable, but I thought an end-of-year conclusion would be fitting. I really did think while drafting this book of going past December 31st or January 1st and having David continue to pursue spirits whose deathiversaries fell in January, February, March, and so on until he came full circle to late June. David could have done an entire year of missions, but ultimately I felt it was wise to quit while I was ahead. As a writer I didn’t want to overplay my hand with this one. I believe HWSRS ends when and where it should. 

M: Anything you’d like to say about the ending? 

D: I had to dig deep to write this last story—and I don’t mean research. Throughout the novel David encounters spirits who can be found on the internet and those who can’t. To me it’s fitting that the final spirit is very much in the latter vein, and that through her we find the most out about David we’re probably ever going to know. 

M: You said ‘probably’. Does that mean….

D: That’s really it for David Michael Ewald and He Who Shall Remain Shameless. This book isn’t the first in a series; it’s a one-and-done novel in linked stories. I have no plans to write a sequel. 

M: We are looking into making He Who Shall Remain Shameless available in print sometime in 2012….

D: I appreciate that. I know there’s the rise of ereading—I just got a Kindle myself—but plenty of people prefer to hold the physical book, turn the pages, all that. Ereading and traditional reading should be able to coexist, and I’m happy plans are underway to put out a print edition of He Who Shall Remain Shameless, for all those who dislike reading a book on a screen. 

M: We’ll update our fans here, of course. In the meantime, Happy New Year, David, and Happy New Year to everyone reading this post. We hope 2012 proves to be joyous and prosperous for you all. 

Macromere: Merry Christmas.

David: Merry Christmas. We’re okay saying that? 

M: After reading “Radu”, we’d say we are.

D: It does take place on Christmas Day….

M: And this—the thirteenth and penultimate episode in He Who Shall Remain Shameless—has some religious overtones, we feel. There is, for example, that arresting line the Meritocrat has: “If you know God, don’t go outside.” Care to illuminate at all? 

D: I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help in the way of explaining either “Radu” or “Katherine” [the novel’s final episode]. I’ve never been one to reveal a lot of insight into my work. I’ve always been more of the “let the reader read into and take from it what they will” mindset. I am coming around to the fact that I’m going to have to explain more for a lot of situations, but I hope it’s okay if this situation is one of those where very little is explained. 

M: That’s fine with us. We appreciate ambiguity—and “Radu” has plenty of that. 

D: Things do come to a head here, but yeah, I’d say there’s still plenty left in the shadows. 

M: We get a bit more about the conflict between Ishmael and the Meritocrat that goes way back, and there’s insinuation that David’s parents’ demise may not be what it’s seemed for the previous twelve episodes….

D: That and the main themes driving the novel—all that I was able to draw out through the action and the dialog, but still, the reader’s going to have to piece the big picture together ultimately. 

M: Fair enough. 

D: I really do feel a lot of HWSRS is best left open to interpretation. But I will say I spent quite a bit of time with “Radu” to get it right. I’d initially intended to have this one feature the spirit of the former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, or Ceausescu’s son, or someone closely connected to the regime of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and that was going to be the ultimate confrontation, with that particular ghost. But midway through writing “Radu” I knew this was it. I knew Radu was not a person but a thing, and that the featured spirit was the Meritocrat, and I knew the ultimate confrontation between David, Ishmael and the Meritocrat was going to take place in this episode, on Christmas Day. 

M: So you admit the Meritocrat is a ghost.

D: He’s a supernatural being. I wouldn’t say ghost. Ghost is too easy for what the Meritocrat is….He’s an idea. 

M: An idea. 

D: More than anything, he’s a movement, a force of the future, a compulsion, and those few who are aware of him and what he’s doing—what he’s making countries, nations, legions of people, entire generations do to the less fortunate—are the only ones who have any hope of stopping him. 

M: Stopping the meritocracy. 

D: Exactly. 

M: Do you think that’s possible? 

D: Stopping the meritocracy? I think the ending to “Radu” answers that question. 

M: “Radu” really does end with a bang, doesn’t it? 

D: There’s some whimpering from David about midway through, but other than that yes, I’d say it ends with a bang. 

M: How do you feel about Christ figures in literature? 

D: Um….

M: Just asking. After all, the Meritocrat makes the “If you know God…” comment, there’s the shape of the torture table in “Radu”, the fact that the thirteenth episode takes place on Christmas Day, and the title of the book itself. He Who Shall Remain Shameless—a play on He Who Shall Remain Nameless, right? 

D: Again, I’m going to plead no comment on this one, and say it’s time for me to open presents with my family. 

M: It’s time for us too. Thanks, David, for taking the time here with us. 

D: Thanks for giving me these opportunities. They’re very much appreciated. 

Macromere: Like King Aegeus (“Aegeus”, the sixth story), Arthur Conley, the title character of the eleventh episode in He Who Shall Remain Shameless, is something of an anomaly. David even says at one point that this singer who made his mark with his one hit “Sweet Soul Music” in the late ’60s is “certainly the most well-off spirit” he’s encountered.

David: Very true. Aegeus is different from the other spirits in the novel because he comes from such an ancient, faraway time, and so nothing David brings to him is familiar. Mr. Conley is different in a way as well because of how recently he died….”well-off” in the novel’s sense means Arthur is not only materially wealthy but mentally wealthy as well. He is, in fact, the only spirit in HWSRS who already has an idea of what the Internet is capable of. He has an advantage because he’s aware.

M: It seems, really, that David is using Arthur Conley here….

D: Definitely. The story itself follows “Leo” in the sense of that narrative arc continuing to sharpen. In David’s mind even Arthur Conley, despite his popular song and his substantial presence on the Internet, could use some help in the social networking department…but the main point of David’s adventure in the Netherlands is to turn the tables on the Meritocrat, who actually supports Mr. Conley.

M: We found that interesting—how the Meritocrat seems to not want to erase the memory of Arthur Conley.

D: Mr. Conley is one who could ultimately survive, but David’s plan involves a twisting of that memory that the Meritocrat cannot tolerate, and so the trap is set.

M: How much research went into “Arthur”?

D: A fair amount. I’ve always liked “Sweet Soul Music”, and over time I began to wonder about the singer. Who had sung this song? I would hear it playing overhead in stores, or on oldies radio, and I eventually decided to look up the artist. I was surprised to find that Arthur Conley had a fascinating and somewhat sad history I felt was worth incorporating into He Who Shall Remain Shameless.

M: “Arthur” currently is the only audio file available on the Audio page of your website….

D: Yes. There used to be plenty of others, pretty much the entire novel really, but as changes were made to the nearly published manuscript I decided to take most of them down—all except for “Arthur”. For anyone who’d like to listen to Matt Gunnison’s great reading of this story, click here. The audio version of the story is somewhat abridged, and the play button does take some time to appear, but it’s worth listening to because of Mr. Gunnison’s singing and his use of Dutch.

M: He sings and speaks Dutch, eh?

D: My wife was a big help with the Dutch, but the parody of “Sweet Soul Music”, “Sweet Arthur Conley”, is all on me. I wrote the first draft of it in an airport lounge. I felt a bit like David there, waiting to travel to his next mission.

Macromere: What’s most striking to us about “Leo”, the tenth episode in He Who Shall Remain Shameless, is that the title subject seems to take a back seat to the increasing tension between David and the Meritocrat. It seems really that the Meritocrat is a stronger presence than Leo Ryan in this story.

David: That’s true to an extent. The story is still entitled “Leo”, though, not “Meritocrat”, so I’d like to give credit where credit’s due.

M: By all means….

D: Leo Ryan was of course the impetus for this episode, which didn’t come about until after several of the other stories had been written. I’d been interested in Mr. Ryan for years mainly because of his tragic connection to the events that occurred at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

M: The Jonestown Massacre.

D: Correct. My interest in the massacre itself came first, and then I found out about Leo Ryan. I was haunted by the fact that a U.S. Congressman, the kind of person I’d always thought of as untouchable, invincible in this kind of situation, could be gunned down so violently and remorselessly. It was as if titles and status and positions and political power no longer mattered. Like: “Oh, you’re U.S. Representative? Big deal!” The Congressional Seal of Protection is referred to in the story, and I do believe Congressman Ryan had faith till the very end that this seal would save him.

M: A 2006 documentary—Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple—factors greatly into “Leo”.

D: I watched that documentary before I had any idea of writing “Leo”. After watching I knew I wanted to do something with it. The film unnerved me quite a bit, especially the footage leading immediately up to the shootings on the Port Kaituma air strip. Watching I thought, I know what’s going to happen, but they don’t. And with Leo Ryan I thought, I am watching a dead man, or a man who’s about to die. He’s alive now, in a sense. That also shook me up.

M: The documentary as an outlet for voyeurism….

D: I did have the feeling I shouldn’t be watching this, and that feeling led to the idea of this being a film that had been reviewed and marketed and distributed and sold. And I thought, Can we really criticize this footage? Can these scenes be considered scenes in the fictional sense? What if these scenes could be improved for maximum audience satisfaction and reach?

M: David shows a bit of his own Meritocrat side here, it seems.

D: The way David sees it is that in death Representative Leo Ryan became one of us, an average public citizen, just another victim of Jim Jones and his cult of personality. But there’s tension there as well, seeing as Leo Ryan is one of the better known—if not the best known—of Jim Jones’s victims. That Mr. Ryan remains the only Congressperson murdered in the line of duty cannot be ignored, and the idea that one of these mighty politicians actually put himself out there and descended to our level is something that David wants everyone to know and remember. So much about the Jonestown tragedy has focused on Jim Jones himself or the so-called Killer Kool-Aid. Leo Ryan was known, but in David’s mind he is, like countless other ghosts, at serious risk of fading.

M: We’d like to go back to our initial point: the Meritocrat seems to be more of a character, or a presence, than Leo Ryan. Could this story really be about the Meritocrat? 

D: That story is still to come, but yes, I agree that the Meritocrat is very much a strong character in “Leo”. My intention in writing He Who Shall Remain Shameless was not to hit the reader over the head with the Meritocrat at every turn but rather keep this entity waiting at all times, hovering about, looking for a chance to strike or otherwise meddle in David’s missions. In some stories such as “David” and “Andrew”, the Meritocrat is very much there, seen and heard as well as felt, but in others, such as “Chris” and “Aegeus” and “Alice”, he’s not much of a physical presence at all, and the reader must anticipate the ultimate confrontation, which is what “Leo” sets up in the end.

M: About that ultimate confrontation….

D: We’ll get there, but while researching and writing “Leo” I knew I had to start curving the overall narrative arc more sharply—to move us more quickly in the direction of that big showdown. That’s perhaps the strongest presence of all in “Leo”—the awareness that the major question driving the novel—Will David defeat the Meritocrat, or will the Meritocrat defeat David?—is going to be answered within the next few episodes. 

Macromere: Thoughts on “Aegeus”, the sixth episode in He Who Shall Remain Shameless?

David: “It was sunny mid-September….” is how David Michael Ewald puts it, but this is really just speculation. The narrator of HWSRS successfully calculates that King Aegeus died in September, but to be honest there’s actually no proof that it was September. It could have been May. It could have been January. September works well in the novel, though. And there’s also no way of knowing exactly when Aegeus was born and when he died. He definitely died an old man, but how old, and when, we’re not sure. One voice on the Internet puts his birth—and probably his death—in the 1200s BCE, but, again, nothing is certain.

M: Why Aegeus?

D: His story’s always fascinated me. As a kid I loved Greek mythology. I figure a lot of people can say that but I’m unaware of many people—if any—who have dealt with Aegeus’s death in fiction. Pretty much everything I’ve encountered focuses on Theseus’s adventures, and Aegeus’s unfortunate suicide is simply a coda to those adventures. A lot of what I’ve read goes something like, “…Theseus left the island of Naxos and continued toward home. His father, Aegeus, was perched up at the top of a high cliff overlooking the ocean. When the ship appeared on the horizon Aegeus saw that the sail was black, and, in despair at his son’s death, he threw himself into the sea that now bears his name, the Aegean.” It seemed so terrible to me, such a tragedy, that a father would kill himself because of a mistake like that.

M: Theseus forgot to switch sails….

D: If he had remembered to put up the white sail, claiming victory, his father would have lived. But instead the son forgot, and the father mistook that black sail as a sign of his son’s death, and that was that. It was such a simple mistake on Theseus’s part, and yet it led to his father’s death.

M: In a way then, this story is thematically similar to “Harriet”….the mistake that William Willard made by shifting his weight too far forward in the plane, which then caused Harriet and him to both fall out at such a height. When we read “Aegeus”, we think of that line in “Harriet” David says to William Willard: “And by committing suicide you murdered Harriet Quimby.”

D: There’s definitely that connection to be made. Another element among many at work in HWSRS is the idea of feckless deaths, or deaths that could have been easily averted had something slightly different happened, someone had come in at the right time, or hadn’t taken a small action that turned out to cost another person their life. But it’s not just about death; it’s also about love, and what amazed me about that part of Theseus’s adventures was the love his father obviously had for him. I mean here was a father willing to kill himself because his son had died. There must have been so much guilt weighing on Aegeus for allowing his son to leave to go fight the minotaur. He couldn’t live with the role he had taken in his son’s supposed failure and death.

M: Have you been to Greece?

D: I have. When I went I had no idea I would write about it the way I did, that some of my experiences would go into “Aegeus”, but I like that melding of the fantastical and the contemporary, the common.

M: This story appears to be somewhat of a turning point in the novel. David’s laptop, for one….

D: Yes, the laptop: a 21st century tragedy. But in “Andrew” we’ll see that it was for the best.

M: How do you say ‘thanks for your time’ in Greek?

D: I have no idea.