The fictional Mary and Mark Black run a human trafficking empire in Saudi Arabia until Mary jets off to New York City. Whether their love endures is the subject of Bernard Radfar’s new novel, “Mecca Pimp.” Radfar will be discussing his book as well as other literary topics with fellow author William T. Vollamann at an event at the Hammer museum tonight.
The Daily Bruin’s Regina Napolitano talked to Radfar about the true meaning of love, having a sense a humor and prank letters.
Daily Bruin: What are some of the questions your novel “Mecca Pimp” asks?
Bernard Radfar: Do we ever as humans get to really experience (love)? The book really does ask in a deeper way rather than just accepting the regular idea of love. Love is something much more profound hopefully, and difficult and challenging. I think love is about honesty and the book is about honesty. Honesty is really taking the risk to expose oneself and be real in a way so often people can’t be. The book revalues what love is, it revalues what honesty is, and it even revalues what a man or a woman is.
DB: Reviews have said the book is funny, so how does humor tie in with serious topics like human trafficking?
BR: No matter what the tragic moment in front of us is, I think ultimately the essence of life is comedic. Human trafficking is a challenging topic, but I think there are a lot of other elements to the book that are funny. For example, the idea of a local businessman who just happens to be a pimp. There’s an absurdity to his experience.
In the book, I’m also asking why we don’t have more of a sense of humor about ourselves. There’s so much that we don’t understand about life. And, if we don’t understand something about life, it could be funny. But, instead we pretend we understand.
DB: Your other book, “Insincerely Yours,” which is a collection of prank letters, stars Mark Black, the same character as “Mecca Pimp.” Can you talk about why you started writing prank letters to businesses from this character?
BR: They are not necessarily the same person, though they have the same name and there are overlaps. That’s just part of “Mecca Pimp.” The original book with Mark Black is entirely letters, and that I wrote only to figure out, “What is the most absurd thing you can tell somebody and still have them answer you and believe it?” This is while I was writing the book that is now “Mecca Pimp.” I needed to laugh. And, the more I wrote those letters, the deeper I felt this character, Mark Black became. He took shape in the form of this novel.
DB: How did writing these letters shape or influence the book?
BR: The letters were just so much fun to write, and to get the answers back was double happiness. If you see the letters, I think you’ll be shocked. You can tell anybody anything and they’ll mostly believe it. And yet, we don’t do that. When we go to the drive through and they ask you what you want, we don’t say “world peace” or something really important to you. Instead you just ask for the French fries. And the whole world suffers under that umbrella of not pushing the limits. And, that’s what I try to do in both books. People get set in their ways and they accept things, but that’s so frustrating for those of us that see potential everywhere.
DB: Why did you choose to write a love story?
BR: I wanted to write a love story because I think those are important. I think ultimately our purpose on the planet is to love, and it’s what fascinates me. Everything in front of us is a communication, and the highest form of it is love. And yet, so much of love sinks into it’s opposite. Love becomes hate. Love becomes need. Love becomes failure. I wanted to try to understand why. That’s really the reason I decided to write about a man and a woman and what happens.
DB: Besides an exploration of love, are there other messages in “Mecca Pimp?”
BR: Another message of the book is whether we ever get to live the life we want to, the one we deserve. Not the one that’s handed to us or that we have to live. While Mary Black is trying to avoid the wrath of Mark Black and his love, she’s also trying to discover who she really is apart from him, her family and who she was. I really deeply want people to understand reality in an original way.
DB: What will you and William T. Vollmann will be discussing at the upcoming Hammer event?
BR: I have great respect for William Vollmann as an author. He writes books on all kinds of subjects, always in an explorative and profound way. His new book is a collection of photographs of himself as a woman. So, part of our project is to discuss his book and identity issues.
We’re going to talk about why novels matter, what it means to write novels and why fiction is something we’ve given our lives to. We’re going to talk about why people read novels and why people are no longer reading certain types of novels.