Interview: Joshua Samuel Brown’s First Novel, ‘Spinning Karma’

Joshua Samuel Brown is already known well for his ability to take his readers along on exhilarating journeys, with his wide range of works covering his travels and forays into meditations on his experiences as well as several Lonely Planet Guides in which his unique voice shines through. Brown’s first full-length novel Spinning Karma, which Ketagalan Media were fortunate to get their hands on prior to its release this month, will not disappoint his faithful readers and doubtless will garner him new fans. His satirical look at Buddhism, cults, various media landscapes and the ways in which people respond to manipulation (and spin) is both gloriously entertaining and quietly thought provoking.

Although a great deal of the novel is set in Taiwan, Brown twists his tale as enthrallingly and skillfully as a gymnast’s ribbon as he draws the reader into his idealized, yet sharply observed, versions of the US, China and Taiwan. He flits seamlessly back and forth between the three, making the most of their absurdities in the process. What makes the book really zing though is Brown’s clear affection for his deliciously flawed characters, even as he is mercilessly sending them up.

Ketagalan Media caught up with Brown to discuss the novel and get a tantalizing (but spoiler-free) taste of what is in store for readers when they venture into the pages of Spinning Karma.

Ketagalan Media: After publishing several non-fiction titles, you’ve switched to fiction. Why the switch, and what led you to choose Buddhism as the theme of your first novel?

Joshua Samuel Brown: I’m not sure I’ve switched so much as expanded my repertoire to include stories I made up alongside stories about actual people, places and events.

I went through a “spiritual traveler” phase in my thirties in which I’d travel around Asia and sit in temples for lengthy periods of time. During this period, I did a couple of ten-day Vipassana “Buddhist Boot Camp” meditation courses (which I’d inevitably try to convince everyone I knew to do as well). Spinning Karma was originally conceived during a meditation retreat at a place called Nilambe in Sri Lanka (more of a Buddhist Summer Camp). I’d already begun questioning whether my outward zeal was equal to my actual commitment to practice, and I found myself contemplating the story of a burnt-out new age guru getting caught up in an escalating comedy of errors that would eventually become Spinning Karma. Years earlier, I’d lived in Boulder, Colorado (where Spinning Karma begins before making its way to Taiwan) designing websites for massage therapists and assorted holistic practitioners, so between that and my work as a journalist I felt like I had a lot of fun tropes to work with.

KM: There has been something of a backlash against writers writing about cultures from the outside their own background. To what extent do you think your life experience protects you from such concerns in regards to Spinning Karma?

JSB: There’s been a lot of backlash lately in general, ranging from overblown to long overdue, and criticism is inevitable. As an author the only thing I can control is how I chose to react to it. But to suggest that a writer should only write about their own cultures strikes me as a wild over-correction to the valid issue of being wary of cultural appropriation. In any event, the characters in Spinning Karma are so diverse that for any one person to reasonably claim kinship to every culture represented seems difficult if not impossible.

Like myself, the chief protagonist in Spinning Karma is a Jew who turned to Mysticism and Buddhism sometime between adolescence and middle age, so I don’t foresee any major backlash from those quarters. Many of the story’s supporting characters are from Taiwan and China, where I’ve lived and worked for close to half of my life. I’ve done my best to make these as authentic as possible (within the context of a story which is itself highly satirical), but if readers from Taiwan and China feel my portrayals of characters like Lai Cheng-ren (head of Taiwan’s Ministry of Formalities) or Qigong Master Li Hai-lai (whose ability to pull a fully loaded tractor trailer with his penis has earned him considerable celebrity throughout China) don’t ring true, I can only offer my sincerest 對不起，不好意思 (Duìbùqǐ, bù hǎoyìsi) and 歹勢 (pháinn-sè) [Editor’s note: These phrases are apologies in Mandarin and Taiwanese respectively]. If any Republican readers take umbrage to my portrayal of the story’s right-wing politicians and media personalities as cynical hypocrites on the grounds that the author isn’t himself a Republican (and not because such personalities have proven themselves cynical hypocrites time and again), I won’t be surprised.

There was one part of the story where I sought outside cultural council, specifically in the dialogue used between a trio of Mexican-American characters who refer to each other as ese a few times in the book. My experience with Mexican-American culture is definitely that of an outsider, and while I’ve heard the term used in movies and on TV, I wanted to make sure that the use of the word (and a few other mannerisms I’d given the characters) didn’t come across as clichéd or offensive. I wound up asking two friends, one a well-travelled Spanish-fluent high school teacher and another a student, both of whom live and work in areas with large Mexican-American populations located in the same part of Colorado where the characters themselves come from. Both felt that my characterizations rang true, especially given the context of story and setting.

KM: You wrote Spinning Karma after returning to the US in 2019. Do you think that the novel would have turned out differently if you had written it while you still lived in Taiwan?

JSB: I started writing Spinning Karma (as a screenplay) during the Obama years, only deciding (after several rejections of the “no way in hell is any studio going to put money into a comedy about religion and politics set in Taiwan that will get everyone involved blackballed in China” variety) to do it as a novel in 2016. Trump’s election put my plans on hold for more reasons than one, but I picked the story up again in the spring of 2019 while still in Taiwan before finishing it back in the states later that year. Taiwan is a big enough chunk of my psyche that I don’t think it would have made much of a difference either way. But I get a lot more paid travel writing opportunities in Taiwan, so whether or not I would have found the time to finish the book while living there is hard to say.

KM: Although a large part of the book is set in Taiwan, it is a fictionalized version thereof. Were there experiences in Taiwan that you particularly drew on or decisions that you made where fiction served better than fact that you would like to share?

JSB: Spinning Karma takes place in a more gentle political landscape than the one we currently find ourselves in, which is funny to me because when I first started writing the story I was worried it was way too cynical. While the story became funnier in the rewriting process, I don’t think it became any less cynical in and of itself. Instead, it seems like the world has become more cynical over the last four years. Who knows? Maybe the pendulum will swing back…

Where Taiwan is concerned, the two liberties I took were largely cosmetic ones that will go unnoticed by readers outside of Taiwan. But since you asked, I’ll come clean. The most obvious one is that I’ve chosen to keep the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) at the old Xinyi Road location (where it was when I first wrote the story) rather than moving it to Neihu. A major chapter of the story is set outside of AIT, and moving all of the characters involved to Neihu seemed needlessly complex given the fictional nature of the story. The second anomaly concerns the Core Pacific Mall, which in real life was dismantled around final edit time. Though I could have easily edited the reference out, I made the conscious decision that the Living Mall, as it is also known, (about which I’ve written several articles over the years) should live in perpetuity, if not in the real world, than at least in the pages of my novel.

KM: Which is your favourite character in Spinning Karma?

JSB: You might as well ask a parent with two dozen kids which ones are their most (and least) favorites. They probably have some, but naming names isn’t going to be in anyone’s best interest. Certainly not their own.

I will say that I had a profound and lengthy lucid dream on the night I turned the final copy into Camphor Press (following an intense full day session of editing and fine-tooth tweaking) in which I was an omniscient director watched the entire story play out as if it were a stage play. When the story ended (in the dream), I called out it’s a wrap (my first line in the dream) and most of the minor characters took little bows before going off to wherever characters go after the story ends. A few of the major characters stuck around to give me notes. (Rinpoche Schwartz, arguably the protagonist, asked me if he thought there might be a sequel. I told him I’d get back to him.)

But what I was most struck by in the dream were comments given to me by another of Spinning Karma’s major characters, who I won’t name here to avoid any plot spoilers, who let me know in no uncertain terms that they felt they’d come off as two-dimensional in earlier drafts before thanking me for fleshing them out better by the final draft. I took this as a sign from my unconscious that I’d done a good job.

KM: A strong theme of Spinning Karma is how media and politics intersect in the US and the effect of viral content on the population. Can you expound more on your feelings about this?

JSB: I deliberately chose the title to reflect this theme, as I think the story crystallizes (for better or worse) the fact that narrative, or “spin” has become more important than the actual facts surrounding news stories small and large. Without going into spoiler territory, I think I make it pretty clear that neither the political figures nor the media personalities who populate my book are particularly concerned with “actual facts” as they unfold through the course of the story, focusing instead only on how they can manipulate public perception and use it to their advantage. Though the situation presented is clearly satirical, I have no doubt that were it to occur in real life, media and governmental reaction would be much the same. I believe this over-reliance on spin over reality has only become more exacerbated by social media, and I’m not sure the world is a better place because of it.

KM: This is the first book you have published with Camphor Press. What drew you to them?

JSB: Camphor publishes books in English about Taiwan and East Asia, and I’ve been writing books, articles and (mostly) non-fiction about Taiwan and East Asia for most of my career. Among my intentions with Spinning Karma — in addition to bringing readers on an enjoyable, mildly enlightening journey worth their time and money — is that the story acts as a Trojan horse to introduce Taiwan as both setting and character to readers otherwise unfamiliar (outside of the occasional news story about cross-strait tension or bubble milk tea). Camphor Press shares my passion for introducing Taiwan to a global audience, making it a match made in heaven.

KM: Finally, have you ever considered how successful you would be as a cult leader? If you were to invent your own religion with the intention of gathering a few handy followers what would the main tenants of the religion be?

JSB: I actually started my own religion about ten years ago (during the height of my travel writing days) called “Norrinism”, named for the true name of Marvel Comic’s Silver Surfer character, who, as everyone knows, travels the cosmos on a Silver Surfboard. The cornerstone of Norrinism is the notion that certain human beings may be chosen to travel the cosmos and eventually reincarnate on other worlds. The Snarky Tofu post announcing the religion was among my more popular ones, but in ten years I haven’t gotten any disciples. So I guess I’m not motivated enough to be a successful cult leader. But my partner (and Formosa Moon co-author) Stephanie and I are actively looking for property here in the Pacific Northwest, historically fertile cult-starting ground. So who knows?

Spinning Karma is available through the publisher, Camphor Press, at https://camphorpress.com/books/spinning-karma/, and through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Spinning-Karma-Joshua-Samuel-Brown/dp/1788692241/.

(Feature image by David Lee Ingersoll)