Max Brooks, the author of World War Z: "Monsters are a wonderful way to talk about real problems"

• Literature. The world knew that something bad was going to happen

What an ugly beast the ape is and how much it looks like us. " Marco Tulio Cicero's quote is a warning sign, in the style of 'here are dragons' from ancient maps, strategically placed at the beginning of Involution (edited by Reservoir Books We are talking about the expected return to the novel by the writer and screenwriter Max Brooks (New York, 1972) after the global success of World War Z , propelled years later by his film adaptation.If behind that oral history of a zombie pandemic beat a geopolitical analysisDeep in depth, in this new literary foray Brooks uses other fantastic creatures, in this case the Bigfoot, to point out how quickly civilization disappears in extreme situations. We are animals, whether we like it or not, and if they take us to the limit, we are able to take out the ape that we have inside.

From his Los Angeles home, where he has been confined for more than three months, watching with concern as the epidemic evolves in his country ("it reopened too soon and we are not taking it seriously. We seem more concerned about the economy than for human lives and we are paying the price "), Brooks talks on the phone about his love-hate relationship with the monsters that are the engine of his stories. "They have always scared me, ever since I was a child. But as I got older I realized that these monsters could be a wonderful way to talk about real problems . What I try to do is take my childhood fears and use them to bring to the table the great problems we face as a species. "

For the son of two Hollywood legends like Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft , those problems have to do with "preparing to face crises, whether natural or human-caused. How do we respect and maintain all the systems we have invented to maintain ourselves Safe and alive? In case the time comes when they don't work or break down, you have to think about how we should handle situations so they don't get out of control. The consequences can be terrible, as is happening with the coronavirus. " Brooks has been working on Involution for years, but the coincidence of his publication with covid-19 has once again underlined his premonitory gifts . If World War Z , published in 2006, was about a deadly virus originating in China that causes global devastation, the protagonists here are people forced to isolate themselves by the eruption of a volcano, terrified of a horrible threat abroad. Does it ring a bell?

In fact, his ability to imagine possible catastrophes and devise survival strategies to deal with them opened the doors of the Modern War Institute at West Point and the NATO Center for Strategy and Security. Their job there is to " present scenarios that are not yet military but have the potential to be . I write about energy, food security, cybersecurity ... Things they have to be prepared for , in case they need to tackle those situations before they take a violent turn. I also teach cadets creativity, because we are living in an era when the way the Germans waged war no longer works. It really doesn't work from Vietnam, it certainly did not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. Our military needs to think creatively , rather than just taking into account the numbers and the alleged superiority of arms. "

The character of Max Brooks, methodical and far-sighted, able to extract oil from catastrophic situations to slide lines of acid black humor , is, according to him, to his parents. The creator of Youngster Frankenstein and Mrs. Robinson of The Graduate , "They were very serious, hard-working and knew that things could go wrong at any time because they had lived through World War II. I feel lucky that they taught me the value of discipline and hard work, but above all, how to recover from failure. " And here he pauses, letting resonate the weight of a word that many of his colleagues do not even dare to pronounce. " The vast majority of careers in the art arena are marked by failures, " he continues to feel immune after years of dealing with the high expectations generated by being the son of two Hollywood legends. "You must be prepared to have more failures than successes and those failures are very public and humiliating, so you better be able to deal with them. My parents also taught me not to succumb to criticism and to move forward to become what we now call resilient. "

To prepare each of his projects, Brooks turns to the documentation until he reaches obsessive limits: "For every hour I spend writing, I spend up to 100 investigating," he says with a touch of pride. In the case of Involution , everything around the bigfoot, sasquatch, or yeti is based on scientific studies on apes like the Giganthopithecus. "I have thoroughly researched books by primatologists like Diane Fossey or Jane Goodall . Everything I write must be based on reality, no matter how fanciful the creatures are." Another example: "the members of the community that is isolated by the eruption of the volcano need to make lances with bamboo to defend themselves, so I went home to make them with my own hands to see how it had to be done."

Involution , sometimes biting, sometimes terrifying, can be understood as a stern warning about our overconfidence in technology, when it may be the first to fail in a critical situation. The analogy already present in World War Z is also valid , in which a character compared mother nature to a serial killer. Ultimately, all of Brooks's books are attempts to "psychologically prepare people for what can go wrong. What science fiction and terror can achieve, if properly focused, is to educate people to prepare to real crises without them even realizing it, even if all they want is entertainment. " Double deadly combo.

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