Shantyboat: American Dystopia follows two homeless men as they navigate a labyrinth of political and moral complexities, culminating in a dramatic struggle against a backdrop of deception, murder, and a multifaceted love story. How did you develop the idea for this novel?

As with the origins of other dystopian novels, such as those by Ayn Rand and Margaret Atwood, I looked at current trends—political and cultural in particular—and asked myself, “Where might these trends, attitudes, and actions lead?” In the case of Shantyboat, I only advanced the trends about fifty years and did so without the “benefit” of an apocalyptic event to show that a dystopia can be created gradually—in fact, is much more likely to occur that way. The result in the novel is the devolution of America into a totalitarian, one-party surveillance state. The change, as mostly explained by the character Rodney, is gradual but relentless once begun. I especially wanted to distinguish Shantyboat from other dystopian novels by keeping the focus on ordinary people trying to live what were once, for them, ordinary lives.

Your characters, Dale and Rodney, have a unique dynamic and complex moral compasses. What was your process for crafting these intricate personalities?

Actually, I don’t think that Dale and Rodney are unique. At least, I didn’t intend them to be. Most Americans take their freedom for granted, just as these two did, and probably none of us knows for certain how we would react if we lost it.

But Dale and Rodney do differ from one another in significant ways. Since readers spend so much time with these two characters, I knew they had to be markedly different—in appearance, character, and voice. Also, I had the problem of letting the reader know, bit by bit, just what has happened to America between our contemporary time and the future time in the novel. I chose to give that assignment as much as possible to Rodney rather than a third-person narrator because I wanted this information to arise naturally from the action in the story. So, I made Rodney a little older than Dale, a bit wiser, and more experienced. He has served in the U.S. Navy; he has attended college for a while; he knows more about history and is more alert to current events than Dale. Thus, he becomes the one to tell us what has happened to America.

Dale, by contrast, is more adept than Rodney at practical matters. He has earned a living as a handyman and then used his knowledge of carpentry to work in the Badgett Lumber Yard, the scene of much of the novel’s action. Also, his diction is simpler, more colloquial than Rodney’s. And he is more physically robust than Rodney, who is taller but also quite thin. It is his physical traits that seem to make him attractive to Delia.

An Athene-like character, Delia adds another dimension to the novel. She has a resourcefulness and craftiness that exceed those same traits in Dale and Rodney. She has found a way to turn the state’s controls against itself. Using this knowledge, she creates a home repair business consisting of small transactions, with Dale and Rodney as her mechanics, and manages the business in such a way as to stay below the state’s surveillance thresholds.

But all three also have common experiences that bring them together in a friendship sufficient to share the risks of building a shantyboat and later of starting a business together. What they share is the loss of their livelihoods and subsequent desperation. And that desperation is so great that it prompts them to commit crimes they would not otherwise have even contemplated.

Even more dramatic than the loss of their families, Dale and Rodney share the witnessing of a horrible crime in the novel’s opening scenes. Despite the implicit dangers, Dale and Rodney become determined to build their own shantyboat even though this necessitates their stealing the building materials.

The novel tackles heavy themes such as systemic injustice and moral ambiguity. What do you hope readers take away from the discussions and dilemmas your characters face?

My intention was to show what happens when individual freedoms are lost to totalitarian rule. There are, unfortunately, more than adequate actual historical examples from the twentieth century at both ends of the political spectrum. The novel suggests these misfortunes could develop in our own country. When any government exists to preserve and advance itself rather than representing the interests of the people it is supposed to serve, then freedom gives way to conformity and slavery in various forms, such as judicial procedures that exist more for a demonstration of the state’s power than for the discovery of truth, surveillance of citizen activities by making them wear microchips in order to receive government services, use of digital money as a means for monitoring all transactions and providing a barrier to black marketing activities. We can see the means for these controls already coming into existence. At first, they are introduced as a convenience or safeguard for the citizens, but they quickly become a means of increased control for the state. We are potentially in that process with digital money right now.

Can you discuss any real-life events or personal experiences that influenced the narrative or themes of the book?

I grew up in the Mid-Ohio Valley, where the novel is set—specifically in Parkersburg, WV—and very well remember as a child seeing shantyboats along the banks of the Little Kanawha River there, a river that divides Parkersburg north and south before emptying into the Ohio River. People then (the 1940s and 1950s) often used shantyboats as a solution to the problems of homelessness and poverty. Other people simply wanted to live that way, free of the debt and taxes that come with home ownership. I’m sure this was true in many other river towns across the country. Probably, it still is. Thus, it seemed to me that a shantyboat made the perfect symbol for personal freedom to use in this novel.

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