Elizabeth McKenzie Interview, plus links to author biography, book summaries, excerpts and reviews

An interview with Elizabeth McKenzie

Elizabeth McKenzie discusses The Portable Veblen, the book's connection to Palo Alto past and present, and the life of of Thorstein Veblen, an economist who coined the term conspicuous consumption. She also touches on her reasons for feeling revulsion at medical marketing and how she found fiction elements of her story being played out in the news stories of the day as she wrote the book.

What compelled you to write this book?

For a long time I'd been thinking of writing a comic novel about two people who want to be together but whose families are very irritating and definitely getting in the way. But at the same time, a close family member went into treatment for a serious illness and entered a clinical trial, and it didn't go well. I was angry that it didn't go well and also angry about my misunderstanding of the purpose of the trial, and being angry about something is always a very good place to start writing.


Who is Thorstein Veblen? Why did you become interested in him, and what are his ties to Palo Alto?         

Thorstein Veblen was a utopian anarchist primarily known as an economist and sociologist, coiner of the term "conspicuous consumption." But his writings were extensive on an amazing number of topics, and the biographical details of his life, as a misunderstood outsider, really endear him to me. He taught at Stanford for several years and bought an odd lot up the old La Honda Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains, not too far from where I live, and perched a discarded chicken coop on the ridge. For years after his dismissal at Stanford, he'd return to it, and he died here in 1929, just off Sand Hill Road. It's not hard to imagine him going up into the mountains with his horse and cart full of papers and books, a figure on the cusp of our era who had such a prescient understanding of what was to come.


Why is Veblen Amundsen-Hovda named after him?

Aha! Once I realized that Thorstein Veblen's work was informing the atmosphere of the book, I knew she had to be named for him. I was introduced to his work and ideas when I was growing up, as my family held very antimaterialistic beliefs. My mother made most of our clothes, not at all to my liking, especially when I wanted something other girls had, like white go-go boots or some other faddish item, and was heavily ridiculed by my mother. In the book, though, Veblen's mother may have had more than one reason to name her that…

 
In the beginning of the book, you write of Veblen: "She had once concluded everyone on earth was a servant to the previous generation—born from the body's factory for entertainment and use. A life could be spent like an apology—to prove you had been worth it." What did you want to explore in how parent-child generations relate to each other?

You're right, this is definitely a preoccupation of mine, the pain of one's love for one's parents! And coming to terms with what you want to keep and reject as your own personality is struggling to form in their shadow.


We see shades of the old and new Palo Alto throughout the book, from Veblen's beloved cottage on Tasso Street and Paul's ex-hippie parents to Paul's work and embrace of the technocracy. Can you talk about how Palo Alto has changed during your time living in the Bay Area?    

Though set in affluent, present-day Palo Alto, it was important that the world of the novel be Veblen's world, filtered by an appreciation for plainer, simpler times, such as when her namesake taught at Stanford and lived nearby. This setting made for instant friction, especially since Paul, Veblen's fiancé, has been eagerly waiting to claim his share of the bounty for his medical discoveries. You're right—it's been a bit strange seeing this humble town take on such a different identity. I have a picture of the plain shack my father grew up in, fields in all directions, dotted with old oaks and water towers. Thorstein Veblen appreciated this same modest splendor, documented in a very charming book called The Innocents at Cedro. 
 

You take us deep into Paul's world of medical procedures, product development and marketing, and clinical trials. Can you talk about your research into these areas? What interested you in them?

I once worked in the Stanford University hospital in various departments as an office assistant. I delivered envelopes to labs where drilling and spattering were going on, I saw carts with the emptied cages of experimental animals, I met bumbling young research doctors full of ambition. Maybe the seeds of all this go back to that time. But I also grew up around a doctor, and medical matters seemed to be a big subject around the house.

I've also discovered I have an kneejerk revulsion to medical marketing whenever I encounter it, and while working on the book, I became engrossed in finding the most extreme and grotesque examples. A number of these found their way into the book, such as perky-sounding language describing corpse sachets, or matter-of-fact lists from which one can order newborn, lactating, or pregnant mammals. The lingo of medical product literature became a source of fascination. It surprised me, for instance, to see that these product descriptions often include exclamation points, such as "Freedom from Bone Dust!" or, after a particularly gruesome description of the tool's capabilities: "It's that simple!"


In what way did current events figure themselves into writing the book? Can you imagine a device like Paul's on the market in today's world?

Absolutely, yes. One thing that happened throughout the writing was that items kept appearing in the news that connected directly to the storyline, such as "Drug Company Whistleblower Wins Big" or "What Happens When Profit Margins Drive Clinical Research?" or "VA Finds More Veterans Committing Suicide." It was as if the book became truer and truer as it was being written.
 
You write touchingly and honestly about mental illness through the experiences of Veblen's mother and father, and Veblen, too, who at turns ignores and is forced to reckon with an underlying sadness and anxiety. What do you hope readers take away about mental illness and its effects on loved ones? 

This is a really important theme for me in this book. I'd been wanting to write about the subject for a long time but from an empathetic vantage point. When adults are behaving strangely and you're a child, things get confusing, especially if nobody tells you they have a problem. Here we have Rudgear with his PTSD and paranoia, Melanie with her agoraphobia and manias, Veblen who has struggled with some depression and anxiety, and then in Paul's family, other issues…something for everybody!

 
The squirrel! Tell us everything you learned about squirrels while writing this book.

Oh my gosh. I learned more than I can easily sum up about them. There's so much to know! Did you know, for instance, that they make mushroom jerky? They hang mushrooms in trees until they're dry and chewy, then store them away! Also, did you know that they have been around for over 450,000,000 years, and that until the past century, they would run in ice cap-sized sheets across the land, not for hunger, not for anything we can explain, just to do it. In the middle of the 19th century, a herd of half of a billion ran through southern Illinois. To learn of this and try to imagine it was almost reason enough to write the book!

Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.