Afterburn follows a teacher trying to stay human inside a brutal camp system who is recruited by the government to hunt down and stop a insurgent leader, who also happens to be one of his closest friends. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I started the book during Trump’s first term, when America’s dogwhistle racism had become much more overt both online and in public discourse. Then there were the incidents like the murder of Heather Heyer by a white supremacist in Charlottesville. But systemic racism and discrimination have been woven into the American fabric since before the founding. I teach representation of race in film and media so I’m pretty well versed in just how racist our society has been, which I  document in a three volume encyclopedia I co-edited, Race in American Film: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation. One thing that struck me, and that really informed the book, are the shifting demographics in the US, which is slowly making white people the minority. Some white people are very freaked out about what they feel is having their heritage and “bloodlines” erased by the proliferation of non-white people. Speculating on what will happen if this trend continues and white people really get bent out of shape by it — to the point where they want to organize some kind of armed “resistance” — was the main premise that informed my book. 

At the same time, I thought it was important that my hero be mixed-race, not only to represent this shifting demographic reality, but also to have him confused about his identity, and to kind of hate himself because he doesn’t know where he belongs. In this way, I wanted him to serve as a metaphor for America. Although he never feels completely comfortable with either his white or Hispanic background, he does manage to overcome some of his self-loathing and find some self-worth as an individual, rather than as a member of a group, which is what I hope can happen for America someday as well. 

Alton is defined as much by his love of teaching as by his survival instincts. Why make a teacher the center of such a violent, high-stakes story?

I’m a teacher. Like Alton, I also love teaching and feel it’s absolutely invaluable to any kind of hopeful future we might have. Powerful people in this country have been deliberately dismantling public education for decades because they don’t want an educated populace. Every dictator and strongman and corporate executive knows that an ignorant population is much easier to dupe, control, and set against one another. This is why I have Alton choose to go back to teaching in the camps at the end of the book, rather than the comfy life he’s been promised. More than ever, he recognizes that getting people educated is the only way out of the dire straits we’re in. We must have critical thinkers and people questioning power and people that can work and innovate in both Humanities and STEM fields. We’ve already lost our dominance in the world because of the evisceration of education. Now we’re just fighting for our survival. Will future generations even be capable of sustaining a functioning society? Right now I would say that’s in doubt. 

The 2070 America you depict feels extreme but uncomfortably plausible. What present-day realities most shaped this vision?

Sci-fi and speculative fiction works are typically cautionary tales about what might happen if we continue on our present path. In this case, if we let the hate and intolerance continue to fester, rather than try to work towards accepting people no matter their color or background, we are bound to destroy ourselves. History, as well as current events, shows this unequivocally. This is why climate change is also a significant element of my book. We are headed for catastrophe very soon if we don’t make massive changes, which looks very unlikely to happen. 

Another element that I wanted to include was the idea that it’s just white people who are “evil” when they get power. History shows that any group that gets power over another group will invariably abuse it and use physical signifiers like skin color, hair texture, eye shape, etc., as justifications for why they are “inferior.” In my book, the president is Mexican-American and he’s as much of an autocrat as Trump or Bush when it comes to rolling back civil rights. That’s one reason why Deputy Secretary Rosa Aquilar wants to stop him. She can’t stand the idea that after being oppressed for many generations, Mexican Americans would now take the opportunity to oppress others. What I’m trying to caution against here is the idea that all of us are susceptible to putting our boots on someone else’s neck, given the chance. We have to guard against that very carefully. 

The title suggests something lingering after ignition. What does “afterburn” mean to you in the context of this story?

 In the opening material in the book I include two definitions for “afterburn” that define what I mean: 

“A psychological term coined by Eric Berne, who defined it as “the period of time before a past event is assimilated.” 

“The cool-looking shit that trails a thrusting rocket engine.”

Both of these apply to Alton: his obsession with space travel and the rockets he watches and dreams about. 

And then the trauma from his past, which he carries like an open wound. It remains unassimilated until he develops a stronger sense of self-worth through an act of redemption at the climax of the novel. 

I also like your idea of “something lingering after ignition,” which I hadn’t considered but also works metaphorically. It’s like, once you start to self-actualize, you can see the glow lingering behind you as a constant reminder that you can never go back to your previous state of being. 

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