Random

by Lesley Choyce

I expect the floundering to continue. How could it not?

  But something is different. Much different. I am a prize package of contradictions and will leave it at that.

  As I stumble to my close here, I feel some sadness. I thought I might ultimately share this diary with my father who inspired it, and my mother as well. But I will not. They would only worry about me more.

  And I had fancied that I would turn it over to Gloria, that she was my perfect audience. But I don’t think I will do that. I will help her wrestle with her own demons but need not ask her to come rescue me from mine. Not now, anyway.

  She still falls into darkness from time to time, but she tells me that she can always see my face, no matter how deep, how dark. I am no hero, however. I answer the phone when it rings at one-thirty in the morning. I talk to her. And one night a week, I hold her.

  And you must be wondering about Dean. I’m pleased to report that Dean is still Dean, although somewhat improved.

  He has not come any closer to concluding whether he is gay or straight, but he has several gay friends, guys and girls. He seems happier, less confused, despite his ... well ... confusion, on that issue. Dean will always be my friend, and I like it that he leans less on me now. I tried to sleep but I couldn’t. So I guess I’m back. An Ordinary Joe. Joe Schmo, with a footnote to everything I’ve said.

  In physics, I have learned in my random quest for knowledge, there is something called the theory of everything. It is referred to as a theorist’s “dream” because the theory of everything does not currently exist. But it could exist. It is hinted at in another theory called the grand unified theory that involves a lot of talk about quarks and leptons and gluons. It involves notions about minuscule bits of matter and force-carrying particles. Matter and energy. And no, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. I just hope that the theory of everything, should it ever come into being, will include room for me, and for Gloria and for Dean, and my two sets of parents, one living, one dead—and for a woman named Marie. And it should include the boy on the bike. Matter and energy. And one lone voice speaking into a digital recorder. A story told that will, one day, far off from today, have an audience. And that audience will be me.

  INTERVIEW WITH

  LESLEY CHOYCE

  What triggered this story for you?

  I had heard so many people using the word “random” in recent years although the very meaning of it had become, well, random. And I was, yet again, trying to sort out whether my own life made sense, whether there was a true purpose that we all have or if the events of our lives are haphazard and hence random.

  So I came up with Joey and his own personal dilemma. His was, I admit, a bit deeper and darker than my own. I wanted a different kind of narrative, one that was fragmented and yet compelling, which is the way most of us think. That’s why I used the digital diary idea. Once Joey got going with his DD, of course, he took over and all I had to do was hang on and follow his random thoughts and struggles to prove there is no meaning or purpose to life while being gobsmacked over and over with indications that it does all add up to something. Something of great significance.

  The young men in your young adult novels are intelligent, sensitive, well-read. It’s refreshing to find books which set aside some of the common misconceptions about teenage boys. Can you comment on that?

  Everyone I have ever known is unique and eccentric in their own way. I want Joey and my other male teen characters to exemplify teenage boys who have very complex emotional and intellectual lives. I was certainly not ever normal in my teen years. No one is. Most teenage guys are actually quite sensitive, intelligent, and fragile. The young macho stuff is just a facade in almost all cases. The massive force of social conditioning that comes today mostly from commercialism and pop culture deprives many teens from exploring their own unique identity. So it is my hope that my quirky characters resonate for both guys and girls and encourages them to be who they want to be. I’ve received enough e-mails from readers of my books to know that, for some, these novels do connect and help liberate the spirit of those struggling to figure out who they are, those suffering from “being different,” those who feel alienated and isolated.

  When you first named your protagonist Joe Campbell, did you know you were going to reveal to him the book by the other Joseph Campbell?

  That was a fluke. All I knew was that his name was Joe, then Joey. At first, I wanted to usher in some Scottish history, of all things. I had been reading about the feuds and warfare between the Campbells and the MacDonalds. And then it occurred to me that Joey’s formal name was Joseph Campbell, the author whose books I had read in university. I had an “aha” moment or two over that and when I did a bit more research into the life and work of Joseph Campbell, I realized there were some extremely interesting connections to my character and his dilemma. It was then that I was reminded of the fact that there were some rather significant forces of creative energy outside of me that were helping to shape this book.

  Joe begins as a boy who is profoundly confused about the purpose of life, because of what has happened to him. But would you agree that this is a condition that applies to most teens at some point in their lives? And is it a handicap for them?

  Hey, not just teens. I am still profoundly befuddled and confused about many things. And yet the confusion and uncertainty, I’ve found, is really the wellspring of my curiosity and creativity. I don’t know if I have a purpose in life, and if I was certain of it, I would be a very different person. I live by my hunches and I think Joey is doing that too. When he discovers a hunch of his is wrong, he gets a bit more confused, but then absorbs the new information and moves on, or at least tries to. And thus he grows, matures. But there is no final absolute solution to his problem or an ultimate answer.

  If you were to ask me what my own hunches are about what I’m doing on this planet, why I am here, I’d say this: I’m supposed to be creative and to write. I need to be kind and compassionate to everyone around me (including my enemies if I have any) as often as I can. I must absolutely give back more than I take. I must try my best to be honest with myself and with everyone around me even when it is difficult. I need to be daring and take chances (but not all the time). And I need to remain passionate about what I do and how I live. And I need to have some degree of fun while doing all the above.

  Joe, Gloria, and Dean are outsiders in their world. You seem to write a lot about outsiders in your young adult novels. What qualities do such people have that make them interesting characters to build a story around?

  When we are totally comfortable in our lives, our families, our jobs, and our communities, we feel safe and secure. We are comfortable insiders—inside such a nice, cozy (but almost always temporary) womb. It’s a wonderful place to be; it’s just that it doesn’t work out that way all of the time. So then we become outsiders.

  When you are young, you feel like an outsider because you are not fully fledged as an adult. You are simply too young. Then you become an adult and realize that you are still an outsider on a lot of levels. Outsiders are edgy, nervous, problematic, and interesting. They often don’t know who they are but they know who they are not. Outsiders are still searching for identity and meaning and that makes them more interesting to write about.

  As you develop a story for teenagers, setting doesn’t seem to be of prime significance for you; the stories—and Random is an example—could take place anywhere in North America. Is this a deliberate approach?

  I’ve written a number of novels that are very precisely set in Halifax and on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia where I live. Other novels, like Random, could happen in a random suburban community just about anywhere in North America. I think this makes it easy for many readers to imagine that the story is set in the town where they live. But then within that framework, the world of the narrator, Joey in this case, is fairly precise. It’s primarily the landscape of his interior geography that is most important and that’s where the reader shoul
d be. Travelling around inside Joey’s head with him and living his life vicariously.

  Random is a novel that focuses largely on the main character’s thinking through his situation, rather than working out his problem with lively action. This demonstrates your respect for the reader, I think. Could you comment on this?

  I think that most of us live our primary lives inside our heads. We work out most of our problems and make our discoveries internally although they may be triggered by external factors. The wonderful illusion of good first-person fiction is that you, the reader, become the character while you are reading. That is intended to be my “gift” to the reader. You pick up my book about a character who has never existed and events that have never happened. You accept the psychological game that I’ve created—the contract between reader and writer which is the agreement that the fiction is real, at least while you are reading the book. I can’t waste the reader’s time ... or mine. So I owe the reader the best possible world I can give him or her. Sometimes that is a daunting task. Fortunately for me, I let Joey take over the novel quite early on and all I had to do was follow his lead.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE ABOUT THE DEDICATION

  My 31-year-old daughter, Sunyata Choyce, works in South Africa as director of a charitable organization she created called Project COLORS International. On February 18, 2010, she was wading in the Indian Ocean at a beach in the town of Klein Krans with some local children. Along that stretch of coast, the beach is rather steep and the currents in the ocean can be treacherous.

  Sunyata got caught in a rip current while she was in the water and was quickly pulled out to sea. The children made it safely to shore but Sunyata was swept away from the shoreline and was desperately in need of assistance. At first, no one could hear her yelling for help.

  Fortunately, two shark fishermen, Jacques Starbuck and Jacques Snyman, saw Sunyata’s distress as she was being pulled farther and farther from shore. The two men, one a police inspector, the other a corrections officer, who were casting their lines from the beach, knew that they had to do something quickly to try to save my daughter as she was being pulled out to sea.

  Jacques Snyman cast the line from his fishing rod out past Sunyata and she was able to grab onto it, although, as she tugged, it began to cut into her hand and wrist. Luckily she could wrap part of her skirt around her hand and was able to continue to hold onto the line. Snyman was able to reel her in and both men assisted her ashore where she soon recovered from her ordeal as the paramedics ran down to assist her.

  The fishermen reported that the fishing line used was designed only to reel in a fish up to 12 kilograms (24.6 pounds). Sunyata weighs 59 kilograms (130 pounds), over five times the capacity of the line’s strength, so there was considerable skill and much luck that allowed Snyman to bring Sunyata ashore.

  Ironically, earlier in the month, Sunyata had lectured the two men that it was cruel and unethical to be fishing for sharks in these waters.

  Both men were lauded as heroes as the headlines in South African newspapers read: Catch of the Day. Needless to say, Sunyata’s father back in Canada was most thankful that the two Jacques happened to be out fishing that day and so he dedicated this novel, Random, to them.