Episode 22: Ewan Morrison - Cult Fictions
A conversation with award-winning novelist, essayist and screenwriter Ewan Morrison about the ideology of cults, the dangers of nihilism, and his remarkable novel Nina X
Episode 22 is a conversation with one of Scotland’s most celebrated writers, Ewan Morrison. Author of seven novels, including the award-winning books Tales From The Mall and Close Your Eyes, he has written for the screen, and saw his book Swung adapted for film in 2015.
We talk about his experience growing up around radical politics and communes, the philosophy of Ted Kaczynski, the death of the public intellectual, and Ewan’s astonishing latest novel, Nina X; the story of a brainwashed young woman who escapes from a Maoist cult. Ewan’s just announced his eighth novel, a speculative fiction book called For Emma. We discuss that a little too.
Escape notes: Ewan Morrison
Here are some reading recommendations based on our conversation. Some of these are films, books or thinkers we discussed, other are topics Ewan researched for Nina X, or things he likes to tweet about.
I mentioned that Nina X reminded me of one of my favourite Werner Herzog films, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. My dad showed me it when I was very young, and I still find it bewitching. It’s almost a monomyth for similar stories about children raised in isolation, and I find echoes of it everywhere, from Bad Boy Bubby to Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy.
This paper on linguistic engineering under Chairman Mao’s regime by Ji Fengyuan was an interesting read, backing up much of what Ewan wrote about in the novel. Fengyuan later wrote a book on the subject.
The Lambeth slavery case, covered by The Guardian among others, including an account of the trial of Aravindan Balakrishnan, and an interview with survivor Katy Morgan-Davis. Very briefly we discuss the Scandinavian cult Tvind, Here’s a 2003 Guardian piece about them.
Ewan also mentions Fred Newman, the controversial left-wing activist and psychotherapist, who strongly resisted any definition of his followers, the Newmanites, as cultists. Ewan researched Newman’s Social Therapy, a Marxist-influenced therapeutic model. Her are archived copies of a 1970s essay by Newman on Social Therapy, and his 2011 obituary in the New York Times.
Ewan namechecks Alexandra Stein’s Terror, Love and Brainwashing as a source of research and inspiration. Stein is a cult survivor herself. He also mentions cult survivor and expert Janja Lalich, author of several books about cults and their dynamics.
And of course we discussed Jim Jones, because how could you not. There are a great many documentaries on the leader of the People’s Temple and his cult’s violent demise, but you can’t go far wrong with this 2007 episode of the BBC’s Storyville.
Very briefly, we touched on some home-grown Scottish extremists, the Scottish National Liberation Army. Two of their members were jailed in 2008 for an attempted poisoning. Wikipedia has a summary of their 1980s bombing campaign.
We went on to talk about Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Ewan first mentions the ‘Four Pests Campaign’. You can read about that colossal historical and ecological mistake in an essay by Jemimah Steinfeld. Some of the propaganda posters Ewan mentions are archived here.
Researching women’s shelters led Ewan to Drumchapel Women’s Aid, a Glasgow-based charity. Unfortunately it was recently shut down, or I’d link here for donations. Glasgow Women’s Aid cover the whole city, supporting sheltered housing for women fleeing abusive relationships and other dangerous situations. Find out how to donate here, if you’d like to help.
Ewan also mentions Emma Healey’s novel Elizabeth is Missing as an influence, with a narrative about a character with dementia who solves a crime. It sounds like an interesting analogue to the experiments with first-person narrative Ewan pulled off in Nina X. Speaking of writing, we briefly mention Kurt Vonnegut’s rules, which every writer should know! Ewan also talks briefly about his experiences as a swinger. For more on this I refer you to his excellent novel (and film) Swung.
We talk a little about Ted Kaczynski, Valerie Solanas and others who have written ‘outsider manifestoes’. I’m planning (at some point) to publish an essay about the film Ted K, tentatively titled ‘Incel Prime’… watch this space. A reliable mainstream source who covered the story of Kaczynski’s involvement with the CIA’s MKULTRA programme is The Washington Post. Here’s the FOI summary of MKULTRA from the Sia themselves. Good ol’ Ted K’s a real Google rabbit-hole all to himself, so I’ll leave it at that and let you… dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh.
We talked about the role of the public intellectual, and Ewan mentioned BBC’s 1990s discussion vehicle The Late Show. I found a few gems in this playlist, including a feature on robots, a tribute to filmmaker Michael Powell, and Christopher Hitchens debating Bill Clinton. All of these aired between 1990 and 1992, which sort of boggles the mind given the distinct lack of good new programming we see on serious topics today. A quick shout-out to friend of the pod Darren McGarvey’s new BBC show, The State We’re In, a rare exception to the rule (link is for UK only, unfortunately).
We finished up by talking about one of Ewan’s recent essays, ‘The Optimistic Nihilists’, for Areo Magazine. Ewan and I may differ on the value of pure or theoretical nihilism, but I admire his writing and perspective on this a great deal. He mentions the philosophers Mark Fisher, Louis Althusser and Guy deBord, along with Picasso and Van Gogh. Maybe Ewan and I will pick this topic up again some time!
Nina X is out now. Ewan’s next novel For Emma is out next year. Go and explore some more of Ewan’s provocative essays over at his website. We also talked about his classic, award-winning 2012 novel Tales From the Mall, which you can pick up second hand pretty cheap (apologies for the Amazon link). Get yourself a copy, you won’t regret it (you’ll want to read the rest of his books too).
Up next: David McKerracher (Underground Theory) and Michael Downs (The Dangerous Maybe)
Two for the price of one next time, as I speak to David McKerracher, founder of online university Theory Underground, and his frequent collaborator and fellow traveller Michael Downs, author of the blog The Dangerous Maybe.
We had a great conversation, discussing everything from the origins of Theory Underground, the importance of Slavoj Žižek, David’s book (and theory) Timenergy, and the recent TU essay collection Undergound Theory.
If you want a taste of what the upcoming episode might be like, check out my appearance on Dave’s epic YouTube stream from a week or so back. We discuss plans for a Theory Underground event in Glasgow, in May. More news on that soon!
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I love Nina X, and really admire Ewan, I'll listen later.