David Shafer never planned to write a galloping, globe-trotting, techno-conspiracy page-turner, but that's exactly what he has done. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot focuses on three characters: Leila, a Persian-American working for an inept NGO in Burma; Mark, a Harvard graduate whose blog post "Motivation in an Unjust World" has gone viral and made him the self-help flavour of the month; and Leo, a trust-fund kid and college friend of Mark's, whose mental wellbeing is beset by booze and paranoid thoughts about a global conspiracy to hijack all the world's data.
However, as Kurt Cobain once sang, “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you”. Together the three are drawn into a world of shadowy spy organisations, cheesy motivational speeches and consciousness-raising eye tests where you can’t be sure anybody is who they say they are.
Given its all-encompassing inclinations, it's not surprising to find out that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was seven years in the making. Shafer says it took a long time to figure out exactly what story he was trying to tell.
“I had spent years trying to write the greatest book ever written by a human being and that wasn’t going so well,” he says. “I thought I was writing a book, a much more artful book that didn’t have to have as much of a storyline. I was, thankfully, either convinced out of that, or learned that wasn’t going to work, or that that wasn’t the book I wanted to write. I wanted to write something that people would read as opposed to think they should read.”
Chase scenes
These days the lines between “popular” and “literary” fiction are more blurred than ever, and Shafer takes full advantage to write in chase scenes, Bond-gadget technology and private jets bought with illicit fortunes. However, the villains aren’t the usual evil masterminds; they’re just rich, greedy men with the power to make even more money. Sure, they might get your dad fired, but they’re unlikely to kill you.
The fear in the book comes out of the technology itself. It's a latent menace, embedded in everyday life, and few people really understand how it works. Fewer again can control it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot looks like a thriller on the surface, but it's held up by a deeper set of concerns. Its success hinges on Shafer's ability to balance the techno-conspiracy with the more personal and mundane aspects of his characters' lives. Leo's mental illness and addiction, Mark's inability to justify – even to himself – his new-found fame, and Leila's relationships with her family are the true heart of the book, turning what could be a work of pure pulp fiction into something potentially profound.
It's no accident that the book that Mark is trying, and failing, to write is to be called Try Again Tomorrow. When the plot gathers momentum, the characters are given a plan, an immediate purpose to fulfil. It's a wishful-thinking answer to the eternal question of people with options: "What should I do with my life?"
“Wouldn’t it be great if the online underground contacted you and said, ‘Here is the way’?” says Shafer. “It turns out to be a lot harder to do the things you said would help. Life is more complicated than you thought and it would sure be great if your job would just drop in your lap.”
The ethical struggle in the book is between self-interest and a sense of communal togetherness. Shafer’s own blend of Harvard-grad affluence and easygoing Portland liberalism is hard-wired into the way each of his characters face up to this battle.
“I profess a belief in, essentially, equality; the world should be more just in terms of resource allocation and stuff,” he says. “In me, and I suppose in most people, those things are at war: self-interest versus common interest, transparency versus tact. It’s unhelpful to tell people a rule about these things, because its always dependent upon context. You could line up the chestnuts: ‘To thy own self be true’ against ‘do unto others as you would have done unto you’. We have contradictory advice in our lives all the time. The answer would probably be more commonly-interested than self-interested, but unless you’re Gandhi . . .”
Shafer lived in Ireland for a couple of years while working on the book (his wife is Irish), so it makes sense that some of the book is set in Dublin. A slightly cringeworthy exoticism around the Smithfield horse market notwithstanding, the passages are generally better than the average American rendering of the capital.
Specifics of place
Shafer’s obvious affection for the neighbourhoods of Stoneybatter and the Liberties shines through. In a way, it’s a useful reminder that, against the backdrop of all-conquering globalisation and techno-capitalist ennui, the specifics of place, time and community can still be a source of wonder and surprise.
“I came here for love, and I thought of myself as very worldly,” he says. “A European capital to move over to should be easy and confirm for me my worldliness. Instead, it showed, not my provincialism or something, but my wife would tell you that I complained about so many things. I notice now, the way the human heart works, I did find a love for Dublin. Turns out, whether you take me to Mandalay or Dublin or London, I turn out to be a bit less flexible and worldly than I thought.”
- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is published by Penguin
