James Flanigan
Q and A with Luke Schlueter
Recently, I sat down with Dr. Schlueter to find out a little more about “The Postmortal”, the Common Reading Program, and his thoughts regarding the book.
- What is the Common Reading Program and how exactly does it work?
“It’s a program where the idea is to get all the campuses reading, and discussing the same book. We try to tie in different events and media in order to draw in more interest. The program will likely consist of one book a year, and although I mainly decided upon this book to get it off the ground, in the future it will be more of a democratic process.”
- Why did you select “The Postmortal”?
“It’s an interesting subject that seems to be really popular with people today. It isn’t an incredibly challenging book, so it’s definitely accessible, but it is a real page-turner.”
- Without giving away too much, what sort of social commentary do you think the author seeks to make here?
“Well, there’s a lot of themes going on but I think one prevalent one would be marriage and the high divorce rate you see nowadays. In the novel, since you can theoretically live forever, people engage in sort of cycle marriages. That is, they agree to stay together for forty years, but staying together afterwards wouldn’t be mandatory.”
- What do you think sets “The Postmortal” apart from other popular dystopian novels such as “1984” by George Orwell?
“This book is definitely broader in its social commentary, which has its pros and cons. It’s a lot wider of a spectrum in the message it tries to get across, but at the same time it doesn’t hone in on one thing or aspect of society like a book such as 1984.”
It is very exciting for an accredited writer such as Magary to be coming to our campuses for this event, and shouldn’t be missed. We can only hope that the Common Reading Program will bring us another great novel paired with some exciting events next school year.
