Ask the Author: Johnny Rich
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Johnny Rich
Thanks for your great question, Greg.
As you read further, you'll see that I have sought to draw parallels between the human genome and a 'human script' in many other senses. For example, there is the almost literal sense in which our genes are like the lines an actor follows while they also add their own interpretation. But the genome is a script in other ways: it is a destiny that we – or may not � we predetermined to follow.
The novel itself is, of course, a script of sorts too and the central character, Chris, acts his part in that story, never quite knowing the extent to which he is following a script or writing it for himself.
As you read on, you'll see many other parallels, I hope.
For this analogy, it felt important to me that the book – like the human genome – should have 23 chapters/chromosomes. Each stands on its own to some extent, but they make little sense without the wider context of the whole book/genome.
And like chromosomes, they come in pairs. The book has two parts and, roughly speaking, each chapter in the second part has a partner in the first.
Similarly there are pairs of epigraphs are the beginning of each chapter. These are like the inheritance of previous 'scripts': like genetic material that accretes and evolves, so too does the literary canon, constantly finding novelty in different combinations of the same limited number of letters and words to make new sentences and ideas.
These epigraphs too come in pairs, acting as a structural guide to the ideas developed in each chapter and setting up the sides of the debate that each chapter explores.
And, I hope, all this also adds to the depth and excitement of the story.
As for future books, it would depend on the needs of the subject matter. The Human Script suggested this structure very clearly. An idea I have been working on might need a far looser framework that � at the moment – I am conceiving of like a funnel: chapters that grab in ideas from multiple, seemingly unconnected sources with the links between them gradually becoming more apparent before finally resolving into a single universal point of reason.
For this I've been reading about Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer, scientist, politician, rights campaigner and much else besides whose life was so full of variety, but whose lifework was an effort to unify our understanding of the cosmos into an all-encompassing singularity.
As you read further, you'll see that I have sought to draw parallels between the human genome and a 'human script' in many other senses. For example, there is the almost literal sense in which our genes are like the lines an actor follows while they also add their own interpretation. But the genome is a script in other ways: it is a destiny that we – or may not � we predetermined to follow.
The novel itself is, of course, a script of sorts too and the central character, Chris, acts his part in that story, never quite knowing the extent to which he is following a script or writing it for himself.
As you read on, you'll see many other parallels, I hope.
For this analogy, it felt important to me that the book – like the human genome – should have 23 chapters/chromosomes. Each stands on its own to some extent, but they make little sense without the wider context of the whole book/genome.
And like chromosomes, they come in pairs. The book has two parts and, roughly speaking, each chapter in the second part has a partner in the first.
Similarly there are pairs of epigraphs are the beginning of each chapter. These are like the inheritance of previous 'scripts': like genetic material that accretes and evolves, so too does the literary canon, constantly finding novelty in different combinations of the same limited number of letters and words to make new sentences and ideas.
These epigraphs too come in pairs, acting as a structural guide to the ideas developed in each chapter and setting up the sides of the debate that each chapter explores.
And, I hope, all this also adds to the depth and excitement of the story.
As for future books, it would depend on the needs of the subject matter. The Human Script suggested this structure very clearly. An idea I have been working on might need a far looser framework that � at the moment – I am conceiving of like a funnel: chapters that grab in ideas from multiple, seemingly unconnected sources with the links between them gradually becoming more apparent before finally resolving into a single universal point of reason.
For this I've been reading about Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer, scientist, politician, rights campaigner and much else besides whose life was so full of variety, but whose lifework was an effort to unify our understanding of the cosmos into an all-encompassing singularity.
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