I also read books (in most cases these were rereads) to help me think about voice and tone and general absurdism, including several books by Aimee Bender; The Great Frustration by Seth Fried; Pym by Mat Johnson; LoveStar by Andri Snær Magnason; Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie; Blindness by José Saramago; several books by George Saunders, and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. To study novels-in-stories I reread Welcome to the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (which also helped me think through different formats for prose) as well as the gold standard of novels-in-stories, Allegra Goodman’s The Family Markowitz.
Anyway, as you can see from the start date, it can take a long time to do all that writing and reading—to finish a novel, in other words. With this one there were many false starts and changes (in early drafts, for example, there were eight Marsonauts and now there are six) and lots and lots of revisions. Writing a book is a process. (As a proud Philadelphian, I know instinctively that one has to Trust the Process.)
As for Mars One, it turns out that they may have wildly misrepresented their number of applicants, and maybe some other things, and in any case the whole thing—whether scam or lunacy—has collapsed. But by the time any of that came out, I was already deep into the novel, and wasn’t going to stop. Because at that point it was bigger for me than one strange news story. And it wasn’t only about what kind of person, with what kind of life, would be willing to go on a trip like this—it was also about what would happen to someone once they were there and still had to face the things they had tried to leave behind.
More than that, this novel was (and is) supposed to be about all of us. Here we are, living not in a manicured paradise but in a vast and complicated universe, seemingly left to our own devices—wrestling with the unknown, trying to figure out what to do with the lives that have been handed to us. Thus How to Mars is also supposed to be about how to Earth. How to human. How to be.
David Ebenbach
Washington, DC
Book Group Questions
If someone offered you a guaranteed-safe one-way journey to Mars, how tempted would you be? What if it was two-way but would take several years to complete?
Do you relate to any of the characters’ motivations to leave planet Earth?
Do you think there may be intelligent life out there in the universe somewhere? If so, what do you think it might be like? How like/unlike The Patterns might it be?
The novel’s characters are all quite different—in what they want, in the way they think and express themselves and behave. Which character do you relate to the most? Least?
This is a novel-in-stories—a novel whose chapters are mostly standalone short stories. How does that make this novel different as a reading experience?
What contribution does humor make to the experience of reading this novel? And in what ways is the book also serious?
Did Destination Mars! send people with the right skill sets to Mars? What kinds of professions and skills do you think would be crucial to living on another planet?
Acknowledgments
This is where I get to express my gratitude. And I’m feeling a lot of it.
First of all, I am grateful to anybody who’s reading this. That’s a big deal, choosing to read this, as opposed to the many other things you could be doing, and it genuinely means a lot to me. Thank you.
I’m also deeply grateful to Michael Carr, who championed this book so that it could now be in your hands. On top of that, many thanks to the excellent people of Tachyon Publications—Jacob Weisman, Jaymee Goh, Jill Roberts, James DeMaiolo, Rick Klaw, Elizabeth Story, and Rie Langdon, among others—who have devoted great skill and effort to the task of transforming my manuscript into our book.
Thanks, too, to the magazines and their editors who first published earlier versions of some of these chapters as stand-alone stories. “Welcome to Your Machines” was published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact; “Pregnancy as a Location in Space-Time” first appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction; “Prakt Means Splendor” first appeared in The Kenyon Review; and “Team Orderly Mars” was published in Not One of Us.
Of course, the manuscript wouldn’t have been ready for publication at all without the wise feedback I got along the way—from Michael Carr, from magazine editors and the editors of Tachyon, and from some brilliant writers in my life. In that last category, I send a big thank you to Angie Chuang, Tania James, Melanie McCabe, Emily Mitchell, West Moss, and David Taylor. (If you’ve finished reading this book, you should drop everything and go read their books next. You won’t regret it.)
And How to Mars wouldn’t have ever even been ready for feedback if not for the people who have energized and sustained me as a writer for so long. I’m thinking of my family, including my supportive parents and sister, and so many friends who have encouraged me again and again. And above all I’m thinking of my incomparable wife, Rachel, who is (beyond being spectacular in her own right) my most crucial booster and soother and champion and source of wisdom; and of my fantastic son, Reuben, who is my inspiration and, by far, my best reason to have hopes for the future.
Thank you.
Born and raised in the great city of Philadelphia, David Ebenbach is the author of eight books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, including the novel Miss Portland and the short story collection The Guy We Didn’t Invite to the Orgy and Other Stories; his books have won such awards as the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the Juniper Prize, among others. With a BA in Psychology from Oberlin College, an MFA in Creative Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, David teaches creative writing, literature, and identity development in Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization and he teaches creativity in Georgetown’s MA program in Learning, Design, and Technology. David also works as a project manager for Georgetown’s Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, the school’s center for teaching and learning. He’s taught at George Washington University, Earlham College, Vermont College, Montclair State University, LaSalle University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. All this work has required a lot of moving; David has lived in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, and Indiana—and now he lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and son. You can find out more at davidebenbach.com.
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