Interview: Michael Jackson talks about Outliers

In over 40 works of fiction, poetry, memoir, and anthropology, Michael Jackson has drawn on his extensive experience in Aotearoa, Sierra Leone, and Aboriginal Australia to develop a unique genre-blurring style which has garnered international praise and many awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry, and the Victor Turner Lifetime Achievement Award for Humanist Anthropology. Jackson is one of New Zealand’s earliest recipients of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. He is currently Senior Research Fellow in World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Michael talks to NZ Booklovers.

Tell us a little about Outliers.

The older we get the more we look back rather than forward. Inevitably this leads us to reflect on whether we have lived the life we envisioned for ourselves when we were young, and what we would do differently if we had our lives over again. At the same time, we compare ourselves with our peers, wondering how our accomplishments measure up to theirs.  Outliers is a set of eight stories that explore the mysterious relationship between who we start out as and who we become. 

What inspired you to write this book?

I have long been preoccupied with the philosophical question of whether we are free to lead the lives we imagine for ourselves or are constrained by the families and countries we grow up in, the legacies that weigh us down, and the wounds we carry. As an anthropologist, I've never been satisfied with exploring these questions in the abstract.  Living and working in a West African village, or an Australian Aboriginal community, has helped me see how fate and freewill play out in actual lives. often over several generations. Outliers is an attempt to achieve something similar in a work of fiction.

What research was involved?

With one exception the stories in Outliers are fictional.  But like all works of the imagination, my stories have their origins in memories of people, places, and events I have known.

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

I customarily write for 2-3 hours every weekday morning, though the work is always at the back of my mind, and I rely heavily on what is brought to mind during the hours of sleep. Most writers have a similar routine, alternating conscious and subconscious work.

If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include.

I am a fan of the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs in which a notable individual is interviewed and asked to name eight pieces of music associated with significant events or periods in their life. A soundtrack for Outliers would consist of the pieces of music associated with the characters in my stories, including an aria from Verdi's La Forza del Destino, Saint-Saëns's Havanaise, Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, and Joan Armatrading's Save Me. 

What did you enjoy the most about writing Outliers?

I enjoy writing, even when it's hard going. In the case of Outliers, I enjoyed the experience of creating characters that took on lives of their own.  All I had to do was follow them wherever luck or love took them, recording their journeys though never quite sure where their journeys would end.

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

I remember feeling relieved more than elated.  Whenever I finish a book, despite the intense labour and numerous drafts, I feel I have failed to fully realise the vision I had of it, and often begin casting about for a new project in the hope of redeeming the last one.

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

Waiting at the Mountain Pass, by Harmandeep Kaur Gill.  The author offers an intimate meditation on the journey of life which, according to Tibetan Buddhist exiles in Nepal, is compared to a climb up to a mountain pass. On reaching it, the journey concludes and one must cross over into death and the next rebirth. The poignancy of these journeys, recounted by elderly women whose lives had been led in exile, resonated with the stories I was telling in Outliers.

What’s next on the agenda for you?

I am writing a book called A Sense of Belonging.  Some of its themes emerged from writing Outliers, including the ambivalence of being a migrant or expatriate, neither entirely at home in the country where one lives nor able to return or remain connected to the homeland one left.

Ugly Hill Press