A Brief Interview with a Hideous Man

Author Steve Almond’s four-year-old daughter Rosalie interviews him about his depressing new book, Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country :

Rosalie Almond: What’s wrong with you?

Steve Almond: I have a new book out.

RA: The one about stupid stories?

SA: It’s about bad stories.

RA: Like something bad happens?

SA: Not exactly. There are bad stories in which something bad happens. But when I say “bad stories” I mean stories that lead to bad things happening. Stories that are untrue or that are cruel, stories that make people want to break things, rather than build things.

RA: I don’t get it.

SA: Okay. Here’s an example. If I said to you, “You can’t trust people with green eyes, because they will steal your toys. You have a right to play with your toys, don’t you? But if you see a kid with green eyes, you shouldn’t be nice to them, because they just want to steal your toys.”

RA: Why do they want to steal my toys? What did I do to them?

SA: I understand. But okay, wait a second.

RA: I hate them!

SA: Wait a sec—

RA: People with green eyes should die!

SA: Okay. Time out. That was just an example. People with green eyes don’t want to steal your toys.

RA: But you just said they did!

SA: Right. But that wasn’t true. It was just a bad story I told you.

RA: Why did you say that if it wasn’t true?

SA: Because when you tell a bad story a lot of the time people will listen to you, and that gives you a lot of power. Someone who wants to become a famous radio host, or even the president, can tell bad stories as a way of getting attention. They can say, “People with green eyes want to steal your toys!” And, “People who read books think you’re stupid!” And, “You can’t trust people with dark skin!” It doesn’t matter if those stories are mean and untrue.

RA: It doesn’t?

SA: Not if it helps you get power. If you can find people who feel frustrated and angry and who are in pain, bad stories make them feel good.

RA: Why?

SA: Because now they have a good reason to feel angry. If they feel like they don’t have enough toys, or they worry that they might not get dessert, or if they see other kids who have more than them, those things make them angry. Bad stories give them a reason to feel angry. And someone to blame.

RA: But why do other kids have more? That’s not fair.

SA: You’re absolutely right. It’s not fair. In a fair world, we would divide things up more equally, right? There wouldn’t be people with 100,000 chocolate cakes and other people who don’t have enough money to buy a loaf of bread. But if you’re a person with 100,000 chocolate cakes, you can distract people from how greedy you are by telling bad stories, by saying, “The reason you don’t have enough money to buy a loaf of bread is because some dark-skinned person from another country who doesn’t even speak English stole your job!”

RA: But I don’t have a job.

SA: Right.

RA: Do I have to get a job?

SA: Someday, sure. But for now, I think it’s good for you to just go to pre-school.

RA: Because I can get a job later?

SA: Right, that can happen later.

RA: Will things be fair when I grow up?

SA: I don’t know. I hope so. But the only way they are going to get fair is for people to stop telling bad stories. They have to start telling good stories, which are stories that make people feel nicer and more hopeful and more generous. Stories which make you feel like you can understand how someone who looks different from you, or prays to a different God, actually wants the same things as you. Like they want a safe place to live and good schools for their kids to go do and enough to eat and a good doctor to go to if they get sick. That’s what all of us want, right?

RA: Not the doctor. They do shots!

SA: That’s true. But sometimes shots are the only way to help someone who is sick, right? Remember when you and mama got the flu?

RA: We couldn’t fly on the plane to California. We had to come later.

SA: That’s right. You were so sick. But if you get a shot, you don’t get the flu. Good stories can be like that, too. They can be like a shot that keeps us from getting sick, or helps us get better. So a good story is a true story that helps keep us safe, even if it’s a little scary. Like if we want to keep the planet from getting too hot, we have to use less gas. Or if we want to have a government that helps people we have to vote for people who want to solve problems. Or if we want people to have enough to eat and good schools and good jobs, we might have to take a little bit away from the people who have 100,000 chocolate cakes.

RA: Can I have dessert tonight? I never get dessert.

SA: You already had dessert, my love. You had a lollipop.

RA: I did? Really? Is your book over yet?

SA: Over?

RA: Yeah, I want to read a different book now. One of my books.

SA: Okay. I don’t blame you. I like your books better than mine, anyway.

RA: So why did you write your dumb book, anyway?

SA: I guess because for writers the stories we write are the ones that get stuck in our heads. Stories that won’t go away unless we write them down. That’s just how it works.

RA: That sounds boring.

SA: It is boring.

RA: I told you so.

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Steve Almond is the author of ten books, most recently Bad Stories. His daughter Rosalie has no plans to read the book.