Why 1922?

Now this is something. Between my book-tour stops in the UK, I get a phone call from the BBC's Nicola Holloway, the host of "Open Book." I'm in London when I take the call, staying at The In & Out Club on St. James's Square. Nicola has just read The Boston Castrato:
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"Utterly Appalled, Absolutely Fascinated"

Nicola Holloway: "I was utterly appalled and had to hold my hands over my eyes during the surgery section. Then I was absolutely fascinated. The story is very lively, vivid, and incredibly real. You make 1922 such a colorful time. I’ve been to Boston before, some time ago, and it was a distinct pleasure to be whisked back there with Raffi during such a time of change. Why did you pick 1922?"

My answer: "I liked how Boston was going through hallucinations of modernity back then. It was a dress rehearsal for 1968, with The Unbearable Lightness of Being and all the tanks, the Summer of Love. Eliot wrote The Waste Land in 1922. Nineteen twenty-two was a trap door to the paranormal, a great hinge between the Edwardian and ‘modern’ world. There was such xenophobia in Boston in 1922, with all the Puritans investing in canning companies advertising '100 percent pure.'

More 1922 upheavals:

The BBC is started
Mussolini marches on Rome
Freud publishes The Pleasure Principle
Hitler & Goering meet
Stalin appointed General Secretary
James Joyce's Ulysses is published
Michael Collins killed (ambush)
Irish Free State begins
Gandhi arrested, sentenced to 6 years
60,000 die in China from typhoon
King Tut's tomb discovered
Dirigible Roma explodes
Kafka publishes The Castle
Fitzgerald's The Beautiful & Damned
Britain gives Egypt independence
First microfilm, first aircraft carrier, first Eskimo Pie

Guru Paramahansa Yogananda in Boston, 1922




Nicola: "How did the story come to you?"

"From early childhood, I’ve wondered about love and attraction. It’s so important, but we know so little about it. This story wonders, shouldn’t we first identify ourselves through our humanity before we jump into our Mars and Venus allegorical codifications? I wanted Raffi’s essential humanity to shine until we slowly realize he’s the only whole person in a castrated society."