SPEAKING WITH joshua t. cALVERT

I have been looking forward to speaking with you about this book...

What first sparked the idea for The Immortal—was it the concept of immortality itself, a character, or a "what if" moment you couldn't let go?
The question of immortality has always fascinated me. Not so much whether it will become medically possible (I don't believe it will), but rather what it would do to us as human beings. I have an academic background in psychology, so I'm primarily interested in the psychological implications. I explore that particular question — would we all become anxiety-ridden neurotics if we were immortal, terrified of dying in an accident? — in my novel "Singularity", which is being published in December. With "The Immortal", I was more interested in how we would deal today with someone we believed had been alive for 2,000 years.

Immortality has been explored across literature for centuries. What did you most want to say about it that feels new or relevant today?
Whether we would even recognise an immortal as such today, and how we would treat him. Would we want to exploit him in order to turn his "secret" into something marketable?

In a story built on such a powerful premise, how did you balance the philosophical weight of immortality with the emotional journey of your protagonist?
It was very important to me to leave the question of whether the immortal really is immortal unresolved until the very end, while at the same time making it the most pressing question for my protagonist, whose daughter's life may depend on whether the immortal genuinely exists. That's the dilemma. He has to believe in the immortal's existence if he wants to hold on to hope for his daughter — but how far is he prepared to go, should it turn out to be true?

Your novel suggests that immortality may not be the gift it appears to be. Were you most interested in its advantages—or its consequences?
I'm more interested in the consequences. I don't see immortality as a gift. Sooner or later, deaths will still occur — through accidents, for instance. But far fewer through illness and ageing. As a result, we would lose the capacity for healthy suffering, for the psychological resilience that is so essential, not least as a catalyst for our spiritual selves and our personalities. We simply wouldn't be ourselves any longer. To say nothing of the loss of that sense of urgency which spurs us on to the achievements and visions we want to realise in order to leave something positive behind.

How did you approach structuring a narrative that spans such an expansive sense of time without losing narrative tension? Do you plot fully before writing?
Yes. I always plot the entire story in advance, down to every individual scene, and ruthlessly cut anything superfluous. After that, I keep refining until I feel the narrative arc and pacing are just right. With a thriller in particular, that's absolutely crucial.

What kind of research—scientific, historical, or philosophical—went into shaping the rules and implications of immortality in your novel?
My father is a doctor and longevity researcher — and at the same time a practising Catholic. That obviously helped enormously :-).

The novel seems to straddle genres—science fiction, thriller, and philosophical fiction. Was that blending intentional from the start?
I didn't really think about it in those terms. I had a story in my head that I wanted to tell in order to explore certain philosophical and humanistic questions, and I constructed the story in whatever way served that purpose best. I'm fortunate enough to have a readership that has grown broad enough to come along with me on that journey, and I'm very grateful for it.

Every story needs resistance. Without revealing too much, what kind of opposition did you feel was necessary to challenge an immortal protagonist?
Since part of the story has a Christian background (although I'm not a practising Christian myself), it was important to me to align the villains' motives with the seven deadly sins — something the attentive reader will likely have picked up on as the plot unfolds. These deadly sins are ingrained in all of us as part of the "human condition", which means that even the villains in the book are ultimately a mirror held up to ourselves, and that even though they have to be opposed, they should also evoke a measure of compassion.

What do you hope readers question about their own lives—or mortality—after finishing this book?
That they reflect on what truly matters to them and where they choose to focus their attention. That it isn't so important why they believe something, or what others say about it, but rather what that belief does to them — and whether it brings light into their world, or darkness.

Endings in a story about immortality carry unique weight. How did you decide where—and how—to conclude the journey? Without giving too much away, of course.
It's very difficult to talk about the ending without spoiling it. I wanted an ending in the spirit of Inception, which I think is brilliant. The ending appeared ambiguous, with the spinning top — but anyone who paid close attention to the film knows that Nolan in fact provides a clear answer. I made mine a touch more obvious, but essentially I wanted to give the reader a satisfying answer without spelling it out in black and white, if that makes sense :).

How does this novel reflect your growth as a writer compared to your earlier work?
I plotted even more meticulously for this book, and I was even more disciplined about tightening the narrative.

After exploring something as vast as immortality, where does your imagination take you next? What subjects would you like to tackle?
It's about the technological singularity. The book is being published in December by Podium Publishing and, as I mentioned earlier, is called "Singularity". It deals with immortality once again — but in an entirely different way.

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