AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
A Christmastime Antarctic cruise in crystalline, icy waters is the setting for Quan Barry's latest novel, "The Unveiling." Experienced mostly through the eyes of a film scout and photographer named Striker, we're taken on a luxury trip gone horribly wrong in so many ways. A mishap earlier in the book leaves our cast of characters stranded, fending for themselves in a hostile, at times mysterious, environment, and things get tense and a little strange pretty quickly. Poet, playwright and novelist Quan Barry joins us from Madison, Wisconsin. Welcome to the program.
QUAN BARRY: Fabulous. Thanks for having me.
RASCOE: First of all, tell us about this main character, Striker. I'm - just the name - for me, I'm thinking a blond, tall, like, a European man (laughter).
BARRY: Oh, interesting, interesting.
RASCOE: That's what I think when I hear Striker, but she's an African American woman. She's a photographer who sees nature and people seemingly as they really are. But she's also a bit of an unreliable narrator.
BARRY: Yeah. So that's an interesting observation about her name. I have to admit, I do maybe steal names from friends and friends of friends. And so one of my friends does have a friend named Striker. That's her last name. That's what she goes by.
RASCOE: Oh, OK.
BARRY: And I knew when I heard that that I was really just like, yes, because it does so much work, right? But yes, so she is on this Antarctic cruise. She's a film scout. She is looking for locations for a biopic about Ernest Shackleton and his doomed expedition. And I think the name Striker also maybe clues you into that she's a bit of a loner in many ways, right? She doesn't rely on other people. She's definitely, like I said, like, a lone wolf type.
RASCOE: Yeah. And she's trying to navigate herself as this Black woman, and she's the only Black woman and one of the only people of color in the whole group. She's expected to kind of have all the answers. She's looked to for leadership, but she's also very weary of the people around her and not sure who to trust. Like, how did you play with that dynamic?
BARRY: Yeah. So a lot of what you're, you know, alluding to has to do with her first impressions of people, right? And so that was a lot of fun to create these characters and to create her first impressions because, let's face it, as human beings, we all do that, right? We meet somebody, and we very quickly size them up, right? Usually, it's not as extreme as, OK, if I were stranded in Antarctica, who would I trust?
RASCOE: (Laughter) Yeah, yeah.
BARRY: But we tell our stories right from the get-go, right? And so it was really fun, like I said, to create those characters. But hopefully, over the course of the book, we begin to see her preconceptions of who these other people are begin to shift and begin to change, as, like - as more truth comes forward in various ways and in which more things kind of get revealed.
RASCOE: The narrative - it does advance really quickly, and you have these pages that are redacted, which seem to be kind of, like, blackout moments. But you also have - which I found very different - is this book has no chapters. There are no chapter breaks. I mean, the pacing of it just goes. And why did you make that choice?
BARRY: Yeah. You know, when you're in Antarctica - and especially in December because it's summer - because you're there in December, it means, you know, a 24-hour sunlight, right? And so it's the idea that every day sort of feels the same. And because of the cold temperatures, nothing ever really decays. So it's kind of like you're in this place of stasis, right? Everything's sort of stuck in certain kinds of ways. In some ways, the book is almost like a moment, like, even though a lot of things happen, you know? And I wanted that sort of claustrophobic feel that you're, like, stuck in this place, and you can't get out. So for me, chapters would have introduced, like, relief for the reader in a way, and I wasn't really interested. You know, I'm like, no, there isn't really relief, right? You go until you go.
RASCOE: You got to stay in it. You got to...
BARRY: Yeah.
RASCOE: ...Stay in it. This area of the Antarctic Peninsula - I mean, it's like, the most remote part of the planet. The continent itself is massive. It is nature that rules here. What does that setting tell us about nature's place in this story?
BARRY: It's interesting. Antarctica is actually the only landmass that was ever truly discovered by human beings. So all the other discoveries, you know, by people, there were already folks there, right? So Columbus comes here. There's already people here. He's not really discovering anything, you know? And so in thinking about Antarctica, like I said, it's the only place in which there were no people. There were no cities, no civilization. And so I knew that that as a setting would really just be, like, a ripe place to explore, like, inner conflict, you know, inner beliefs. There's also - for me, it was rich because I think of Antarctica and all that ice sort of as a mirror, right? So there's a lot of self reflection and inner dialogue.
RASCOE: This is sort of a scary "Gilligan's Island" in Antarctica. It's a luxury cruise that goes awry. But you have the classism because you have this wealthy couple, and then you have this very wealthy older couple. Then you have a tech billionaire and her husband. Then you have this - what we believe is to be, like, a Southern couple with a nonbinary teen. And then we have three dads and, you know, an adopted daughter. And then we have Striker, a Black woman who's dealing with all this and also thinking about what it means to be an ally, what it means to be supportive. What does it mean to give of yourself? And what does it mean to be vulnerable with all these people who are so different from you? Talk to me about that.
BARRY: You know, in talking to some friends of mine who have read the book a bit earlier, one of the words that keeps coming up is this word redemption, right? And so it's this idea that this particular character, in some ways, has to make her own inner peace with the decisions that she's made in her life. And the tools that are being brought to her to help her, you know, on this journey are these people, like, these very different people who represent very different kinds of ways of living a life, right? And so, you know, in thinking about it and thinking about race, you know, she herself, as a Black woman, has certain expectations, too, right? You know, there's an epigraph that's the very famous W.E.B. Dubois, you know, quote about double consciousness...
RASCOE: Yes, yeah.
BARRY: ...Right? - this idea of how Black people are only allowed a certain kind of way of, you know, being seen by the exterior world, right? And so the book is very much about perception because in some ways, there is no perception if there's nobody to perceive you.
And the last thing I would say about this is that there's a line early in the book where she's talking about how, you know, since 2020 and the murder of George Floyd, a certain kind of white person now maybe keeps their cards closer to their chests, you know, in certain kinds of ways. And she's saying that for her, she actually - it makes it harder for her to be able to read them, you know, to know how she should act around them. And so I think ultimately, you know, the book's journey is about all of us, like, putting our cards down and then just really relating to each other's people.
RASCOE: That's novelist Quan Barry. Her latest novel, "The Unveiling," is out now. Thanks so much for speaking with us today.
BARRY: Thank you. It was fun. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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