We have a very special guest with us today. The amazing Anthony Mathenia has braved the fireballs ripping through the sky outside to answer a few questions about his new release, Paradise Earth: Day Zero. I'd like to apologize to Anthony for not getting this posted earlier in the day. I was busy cowering under the bed in my aluminum foil hat with a broom in hand, waiting for E.T. to come and take me away. Okay, not really, but that's so much more fun. Anthony, our apocalypse expert, reserves the right to point and laugh at me. :)
But seriously, I am incredibly excited to bring all of you this interview today. Paradise Earth released yesterday from Curiosity Quills Press, and it promises to be a novel so many of you will love!
When the ground quakes and blazing balls of fire fall from
the sky, a religious sect interprets it as the fulfillment of long-held
prophecies foretelling the end of the world. The members flee to their
religious sanctuary, believing that this global cataclysm is the portent
of a new paradise of eternal happiness.Inside, one cold and starving man struggles to hold onto his hope for the future. He’s sacrificed everything for his faith in the prophecy, including his family. As the tortuous night drags on, he struggles to hold onto his hope for the future and grapples with a lifetime of beliefs, and expectations.
If he survives to see the paradise earth, will it be worth it?
Paradise Earth is a deconstruction of faith at the end of the world and beyond.
Let's see what Anthony has to say about Paradise Earth: Day Zero before we all rush off to grab our copies.
Please tell us about yourself in fifty words or less.
 |
| The amazing Anthony |
What can readers expect
from Paradise Earth: Day Zero?
The story concerns a congregation
of Jehovah’s Witnesses that retreat to their Kingdom Hall, to ride out what
they believe to be their long awaited world end. Then things get messy. The story is told from
the perspective of one of the congregation members. He first approaches the horrifying situation
with resolute faith, but as the tumult drags on he begins to give into
doubt. The story is also a reflection of
his past when he made some serious sacrifices for his religion. In the tortuous dark with an uncertain
future, he begins to ask himself if it was all worth it.
Paradise Earth is
surgery. It’s peeling back the skin of
beliefs, hopes and fears in order to peek at the blood and guts. It’s bleak and morbid, but not without a
heart inside. It’s some serious soul
searching but without religious baggage.
What's the story behind
the story? Where did the idea for Paradise Earth come from?
I was raised as one of Jehovah’s
Witnesses, but labeled as an apostate and kicked out when I was an adult. It’s a pretty high-control religion (I don’t
begrudge those who say ‘cult’) and there is no easy way to say, “this isn’t
working for me anymore.” So when I was
kicked out it was pretty messy and I lost my family and friends in the
process. In the aftermath, I was kind of
in this introspective limbo, staring at something I believed with all of my
heart for decades. One of those beliefs
was that one day God was going to kill everybody on Earth, except for us Jehovah’s
Witnesses. The survivors would then live
happily ever after on a paradise earth.
Which brings me to 2010,
when I picked up a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s short stories called Armageddon in Retrospect. It contained a short story called The Bombing of Dresden, which was a sort
of template for what would later become Slaughterhouse
5. In that story Vonnegut goes into
the gory details of what it was like to live through a firebombing that
destroyed a city and having to clean up the dead. As I read that I couldn’t help but to
juxtapose that against my former beliefs.
I had this incredibly visceral image of Jehovah’s Witness survivors
coming out of Armageddon only to be faced with mountains of the bodies of
relatives, neighbors, workmates, etc.
How does a person face that? How
is that a paradise? What happens when
the carrot on the end of the stick turns out to be poison? Those were the questions that I started with.
What's been the single
most empowering piece of advice you've gotten when it comes to writing?
Do it every day. It’s the same piece of advice you get when
you say, I want to be a skilled piano player, or a good bowler, or master pickpocket. A good starter goal is to write 500 words a
day. All of that writing won’t be
genius, but you have to give yourself to the art, before the art gives back to
you.
What's been your most
challenging writing moment to date?
Probably writing Happiness: How to Find It. I started writing that after I had finished
the first draft of Paradise Earth. I
wanted to approach the work with a sober and positive state of mind. In some ways it was more difficult than
writing from a position of despair. The response to the story has been
positive.
What's the worst thing
you've ever written? The best?
I have an unpublished
manuscript called With Fingers and Other
Instruments. I don’t know if I’ll ever
be brave enough to publish it because it reads like a sick love letter to anorexia nervosa. So “worst” in terms of subject matter, but
“best” in terms of writing. It’s the
manuscript I’ll probably keep perfecting until I die. Then my heirs can decide if they want to
publish it or bury it with me.
Do you share any traits
or characteristics with your characters?
Yes, but only the good
qualities. Just kidding. So while I’m not religious, I am a strong
believer in the power of love. I hope
that comes across in the writing. I also
have an affinity for the idea that we can transcend horrible situations. So even though my writing can skew very dark
at times, there is optimism for better days that I’m drawn to. In Paradise
Earth one of the themes that I’m dealing with is the concept of personal
rebirth and the discovery of identity.
That dovetails with my own experiences of leaving a religion that
required oppressive conformity.
I noticed that you and
Matt Maniscalo used the Watchtower for inspiration when collaborating on the
cover for Paradise Earth. Why the Watchtower specifically?
Because the story centers
around one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, I wanted to use some iconic images from
their literature for the cover art. The
image for the first volume Day Zero is a pretty spot on depiction of the end of
the world through their eschatological lens.
In fact you could take that cover art and put in a Watchtower magazine and no Jehovah’s Witness will blink an
eye. For the cover art for the next two
volumes we are going move away somewhat in a way that will mirror the story arc
and a pretty profound theology shift. It’s another way to comment on the horrors of that
particular worldview.
What does a perfect day
entail for you?
Hanging out at the Rose
& Crown Pub at Epcot in Florida drinking a Hendrick’s gin and tonic, while
singing drunken Irish bar songs with Japanese girls. I could live in that day forever.
In high school you were
most likely to ….
… get in trouble for
writing. In high school I started a
rebellious underground newspaper called The
Subterrestrial. It gave me an outlet
for creative expression and general teen angst, though it didn’t always endear
me to the faculty.
You're stuck on an
island... what 3 books would you kill to have with you?
I’m going to lose some
serious writer cred here by admitting I don’t really read a lot. There are two novels that I do read every
year: The Passion by Jeanette
Winterson and The Long Winter by
Laura Ingalls-Wilder. So definitely
those two. The Bible would probably be my third choice. It contains some pretty
profoundly inspirational things. A lot
of what Jesus says is open ended, without easy answers. A person could probably contemplate on that
for the rest of their lives.
Apocalypse tales seem to
be a staple for many world religions. Which is your favorite end-times tale?
I’m happy to go on record
and say that it isn’t Left Behind. I really like the ancient end-times tales
because they always had an idea of rebirth.
The world was not ending so much that it was transforming. There is an element of creation as much as
destruction. The deluge would be a good example of this. In
Paradise Earth this is a theme I’m also working with.
I think there are a couple
reasons why these tales are universal. I
believe that in our collective past we have experienced “end times” and that
trauma has left a psychological scar. These tales also appeal to the notion of
being able to leave our current life behind with all of its burdens and just
get back to what really matters. We know in many ways it would be a harder
life, but there is this niggling notion that it might be a better one – so long
as there aren’t any zombies to worry about.
On Sunday afternoons I’m
generally writing at Global Brew in Edwardsville, IL. Stop by; I’ll buy you a beer. If you aren’t in the area, you can find me at
my website (www.anthonymathenia.com),
twitter (@armathenia) and facebook (www.facebook.com/amathenia).
xoxo,
Ayden
Fade - The Ragnarok Prophesies: Book One - On Sale at: Amazon US | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | Barnes and Noble | Kobo
♥ Merry Christmas! ♥
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