Matt Haig discusses math, aliens and his new novel, ‘The Humans’

Math was not British author Matt Haig’s favorite subject growing up. In his newest novel, “The Humans,” an alien race known as Vonnadorians murder a math professor to prevent people on Earth from gaining more mathematical knowledge than is deemed safe for the universe.

In other words, pursuing math can kill you.

The novel revolves around a nameless Vonnadorian narrator who has been sent to Earth disguised as Cambridge math professor Andrew Martin. While trying to determine who need to be assassinated for the greater good, he discovers music, poetry and peanut-butter sandwiches – making him question whether humans are as violent and dangerous as he has been warned.

Haig will be at Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach on Sunday (July 14) at 2:30 p.m. to discuss “The Humans” and sign copies of book.

In a phone interview with Jacket Copy, Haig answered some questions about the depression, humanity, and whether or not he has a favorite cat book.

Can you talk a little bit about the history of this story?

Basically this is, for me, if you include some books for children, book No. 8. But it still feels like it’s my debut, because it was essentially the first idea I ever had.

Before I ever had the confidence to believe I could be a published writer, I suffered depression in my early twenties and ... in a way that experience, that feeling of being so alienated and feeling so apart from the rest of my own species, that was the source of the idea.

I had an idea then, not necessarily this story, but the perspective of an alien outsider sort of observing how strange our behavior is and how very mundane things we do are actually very exotic and very alien if you’ve got the right perspective on it.

It took me about a decade to get the confidence to tell this idea. Two things I needed before I could tell this idea. First was I needed that sort of distance from depression. I needed to be over that. I needed to be a different person to who I was at 24, because even though this is a comedy in some ways, even though it’s totally a fantasy and science fiction, it also feels like my most autobiographical. Because I know where the idea came from and I know where that perspective came from. ...

I also was worried because technically on paper this is a science-fiction novel, rather than a generic literary novel. I don’t really consider myself totally a science-fiction person – although I do like science fiction. I didn’t want to be boxed as a science-fiction writer. It took me a long time to get those two things together.

I think because my last novel featured vampires. … I think after vampires the only way is up. This book is broad, looking at humanity as a whole, [and] it needed me to have a bit of a track record and to feel that confidence inside myself that I could tackle it.

Why did you choose an alien to explore humanity this time around?

I think as a writer what I’m trying to do always is find new ways for me of looking at human life. I think sometimes, in fiction, when you’ve just got a third person perspective or you just got a human narrator, you’re very, very close. … It’s like you’re standing right up close to a painting. Sometimes the best way to look at the painting is to take a few steps back, and having a narrator who is totally outside our species was the most steps back I could take to look at human life. The title “The Humans” on one level is quite a mundane, tame title, but I also wanted it to be a very exotic title from the narrator’s perspective because we’re this weird, strange species.

There is a lot of math and mathematicians covered in this book. How much research did you have to do? At school I wasn’t as interested in mathematics. I did OK, but at the earliest point I could stop doing math I stopped. So I always used to think that you were either an arts [and] books sort of person, or you were a science [and] math sort of person. I was definitely an arts [and] books sort of person. So I had to do quite a lot of research.

Actually now as an adult I can sort of see the beauty and poetry in those subjects [such as math and physics], so it wasn’t really a chore reading up on this stuff because I found it fascinating.

Also the idea of mathematics being this universal thing that aliens would be interested in, in terms of communicating with humans, in terms of mapping our progress, that came from Carl Sagan … the guy who did “Cosmos” and the novel “Contact” that was made into a film. … He was a great sort of pop scientist, very easy to read for people who know nothing about physics or science or math. It was his belief that if aliens communicate with us mathematics would be the way to go. That was my sort of starting point there.

I had to research real unsolved areas of mathematics. Obviously I don’t understand all these things because even the top mathematicians don’t understand these things – that’s why they are unsolved. ... As a novelist … it’s sort of a smoke [and] mirrors trick … making sure you inspire confidence in your readers. ...

Do you think the Vonnadorian way of life devoted to mathematics is a possibility for humans, or is it something we should avoid?

I think maths is the root of everything. If we understood every area of math it would lead to improving our sense of science, physics, engineering, space travel…all those great things. Maths is a backbone for it.

But I think … one of our great problems in terms of progress is that our knowledge grows faster than how we know how to deal with it. So our emotional and psychological intelligence [is] never quite as fast as the technology we’re creating. Like at the moment in terms of the Internet and software and technology … we’re slowly merging more and more with technology. We understand how to advance the technology but we’re not fully aware of how what effect it’s going to have on us, or where it’s taking us, and what negative consequences it might have. I think we need to put a little bit of effort into that side of things as well as just the next app, the next iPhone, the next software.

I’m not anti-progress obviously, but I just think progress needs to be a broader thing than just the technology we can create, it’s also how we handle it and our level of awareness.

Looking at how you portray the character Gulliver and some of his struggles as a teen, like cyber bullying, do you think’s harder now for kids than it was before?

In some ways. Certainly anyone vaguely in the public eye can be on the negative side of Facebook and Twitter. I’ve had people say things to me online that they never ever would say in real life and I think Facebook and Twitter allows people to be … [how] they would never be in real life. So yeah I think that side is harder.

The flip side of that is I was a sort of small-town boy. I was a bit of a misfit with my group. I think if Twitter and Facebook had been there it would have been easier to find like-minded souls out there in the rest of the world, and I think it’s quite good for that.

But [again] the flip side is that it’s a brutal tool for bullies. It can turn people into bullies that wouldn’t necessarily be bullies if it was just reality in the real … and non-online world. I think it’s very easy to cross lines online that wouldn’t be crossed in real life. That side of it is quite scary.

Do you share any of the Vonnadorians’ views about the dangerous side of humans?

I do. They can’t be ignored. But … unlike the general Vonnadorian perspective, I believe that the reason we’re still here is because essentially, amid all our selfishness and greed and violent tendencies, we’re good. It’s good to be a human. We’re full of wonder and hope and humanity and empathy and all those wonderful things. We’re very very complicated, I would say, as a species. We can’t be wholly negative about ourselves or wholly positive about ourselves. We’re somewhere between.

You have one chapter in the book titled “Advice for a Human,” which is advice from the narrator. Do you have any separate advice from you to humans? That is essentially me sitting down, thinking of my advice for humans, and that chapter is my advice for my depressed 24-year-old self… and to anyone that is depressed.

I stand by all that especially…the things you don’t need to live. You know that art and cinema and books and all that are actually the things that make life worth living. So that’s the paradox I believe in.

Basically [to] anyone who is in that sort of dark state of mind the main thing always to remember is nothing is still in life. You know, if you’re in a dark place time is space and you carry on moving through it and eventually there will be some light, if you can hold on long enough. When you’re in those dark patches, when you’re being suicidal that is the low point.

That chapter was probably the longest for me to write. A week just to write about four pages…this [chapter] is my sort of bible to myself of what I believe in. So yeah. I’m proud of that chapter.

In the book Gulliver uses music to pull himself out of his dark space, but what was it that you were able to use to pull yourself out of your depression and panic issues?

It was reading and writing mainly. As well as the normal things – I was prescribed drugs and exercise. … All that helped. But the main thing … that really pulled be back to myself was reading and writing.

At my very lowest point, in 2000, I couldn’t read. I could physically read, but … I didn’t get the point of books. But … my girlfriend, who is now my wife, just forced me to write what I was feeling. So I wrote any old rubbish down – it’s sort of unreadable now – but it was just sort of my dark thoughts. That slowly helped me get better. Because [writing] is sort of connecting yourself and … releasing … other pressures in your head and … getting it down just helps.

Reading as well, it’s a way of sort of connecting back to the species … and all of that helps greatly. Things that I had read when I was younger, and reading my favorite books, and writing was a way of connecting back to the world. Before that point I never had a serious ambition to be a writer. I think after that it became a logical thing for me to do.

Who is the “you” that doesn’t believe in humans that the narrator is referring to when addressing the readers of the novel?

It’s sort of a bit of a joke by actually having the idea of the reader being a total alien. He’s talking to aliens about us. I’m not talking to you as reader – it’s just this mythical alien race. But in a way I guess this is sort of my view of the writing the process.

For me, as a writer, I desperately want to be read. I’m very conscious of readers as I’m writing. I think “if you write for yourself then why don’t you just keep it under the bed” so I definitely write for other people.

You never know who those readers are going to be, and you never know … how these people are going to read your book or what they’re going to get out of it. So in a way readers are aliens in that you never really fully know them, and no one reader takes the book exactly as you wrote it. In a way there are as many versions of your book as there are readers. That’s the exciting and sort of scary thing about being a writer, you just never know how anyone is going to take what you write.

You make reference to this in “The Humans”: Do the best books have dogs in them?

Yeah, I think so. I never think, “Oh, I’m going to write this book, and it’s going to have a dog in it,” but a dog always ends up walking into my book somewhere along the way. I think it is important to have a dog in any books.

The very first book I wrote was narrated … by a Labrador, but the trouble is the Labrador didn’t have a happy end. Honestly, I have never had more hate mail than for that book, even though my heart was in the right place. I’ve learned that you can kill any amount of human beings in a book and that’s fine, but if you mess about with a canine you’re in serious trouble.

I’ve heard that you are working on a screenplay for this book, are there plans to turn this into a film? The film rights have been sold, and I’ve been asked to write the screenplay. … I’ve written screenplays before but I’ve never written a screenplay of my own novel after I’ve written my novel, so it’ll be very interesting to see how similar it’ll end up. I think because I am the writer of the novel I can be a bit more disrespectful. … So I’m going to completely forget the book and write the same story, but for film rather than adapting a book. I’m going to have fun.

ALSO:

‘Ender’s Game’ studio Lionsgate disavows Orson Scott Card’s views

Orson Scott Card’s antigay views prompt ‘Ender’s Game’ boycott

Q&A: ‘Orange is the New Black’ author Piper Kerman on Netflix show