Destiny and Other Follies follows a midlife consultant and his wife, a couple struggling through marital strain, waning career ambitions, and trying to find one another again. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

From life. I worked in consulting for far too many years and saw what it can do to a person, the cold dog-eat-dog brutality of it, the strain it puts on a marriage. It’s arguably the most extreme corporate experience one can have, and that compelled me to capture it on paper.

The consulting world in the novel feels both realistic and quietly surreal. What drew you to that setting?

Working as a consultant, experiencing so many different client environments, it became clear how the corporate world has impacted society, how disconnected and dehumanized it’s become. My intention was to present this world as a microcosm of our society, to depict the blurring boundaries between worklife and life.

Why was it important that the novel not remain entirely within Calder’s point of view?

It would have read more like a memoir if there had not been other points of view. It was important to show that his wife had similar experiences in her role as a retail banker. I also liked the idea of presenting their separate views about their marriage instead of only his own. Their different perspectives on the US were also important. They consider it from very different backgrounds and mindsets. Hana deserved to be a significant subplot.

What kind of reader do you imagine connecting most deeply with this book?

Readers who have direct experience with the corporate world seem the most likely. But anyone who is intrigued by the corporatization of our society would also connect with it, by the influence some of its most undesirable traits have had on us, and by what that might mean for the future.

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