Neal Shusterman introduces his new dystopian thriller, All Better Now
About Author
Award-winning author Neal Shusterman joins ReadingZone to discuss his latest YA contemporary thriller, All Better Now.
Neal has written more than 30 award-winning books for children, teens and adults, including the acclaimed Arc of a Scythe series (Scythe, Thunderhead and The Toll), Dry and Roxy, as well as the Unwind dystology and Challenger Deep. He also writes screenplays for film and television.
Neal lives in Florida and has four children, all of whom are talented writers and artists themselves. Visit Neal at StoryMan.com or follow him on Twitter: @NealShusterman
Interview
Neal Shusterman introduces his new contemporary thriller, All Better Now
February 2025
Imagine a virus that people would want to catch; a virus that gives you happiness, contentment. But would being happy make you lose the things that make you 'human'?
We're joined by award-winning author Neal Shusterman to explore his contemporary YA novel, All Better Now, about a very different kind of pandemic, to put some of the questions raised in the novel to him.
Read a chapter from All Better Now.
Q&A with Neal Shusterman: "A people who couldn't even imagine what it was to hate, or to fear, or to rage?
I don't know about you, but that's a species I'd like to be a part of."
1. Welcome to ReadingZone, Neal. Can you start by telling us three things about yourself? What has been your favorite writing career moment to date?
Let's see - 1) I'm adopted - and I just found that out a year ago! 2) I get my best writing done on planes, trains, and cruise ships. 3) Don't tell anybody… but I get paid to make stuff up. Is that even legal?
My favorite writing career moment was accepting the National Book Award for Challenger Deep. It wasn't so much the award itself, but the moment I spontaneously invited my son up to the stage with me to accept it, as his life experiences inspired the book. It was both a life-affirming and career-affirming moment.
2. What is your new YA novel, All Better Now, about?
It's about a pandemic - but a very different one than the one we all experienced. Crown Royale is a virus that brings deep, abiding joy and happiness. Once you recover, you're happy and content for the rest of your life.
Once people realize that, more and more people want to catch it… but our society is not designed to sustain so much happiness. If we're no longer needy, who is going to buy all the junk they try to sell us? Leaders manipulate us with fear and anger to gain power - but what happens when we can no longer be made angry or fearful? So, even as people are finding greater and greater joy, there are forces that basically want to find a vaccine against happiness.
The story focuses on three characters, representing three different points of view: Rón, who thinks that this is our next stage of evolution, and that everyone needs to catch Crown Royale; Mariel, who is ambivalent - not disagreeing, but not certain the cost is worth the gain; and Morgan, who wants to eradicate Crown Royale and hold on to all our negative emotions.
3. Did your experiences of the COVID pandemic help inspire the story, or was it something else? Why did you decide to include references to the 'earlier' pandemic in All Better Now?
I included references to the "earlier" pandemic because we all went through it. The story takes place in the real world, so I couldn't ignore the real-world experiences of the characters - or the readers.
As for what inspired the story, it really came from a conversation during a presentation I was giving at a bookstore. Someone in the audience commented on how prophetic some of my books are: how Unwind predicted how the battle over reproductive rights would metastasize into something more divisive than fictional dystopia; how Dry, which I co-wrote with my son Jarrod, not only projected the evolution of the California drought and the devastating fires that keep getting worse but also accurately foresaw things like supermarket raids during the pandemic and the insidious way the dark side of human nature oozes forth in a crisis. And then there's Scythe, in which the Thunderhead eerily resonates with the artificial intelligence we're watching evolve right before our eyes.
So, with all that in mind, the audience member at the bookstore said: "Can't you just predict something nice?"
I couldn't sleep that night. My stories usually begin with a sleepless night. What positive thing might I try to predict? Well, with COVID just a few yards behind us in our rearview mirror, and all of us struggling with the trauma of it all, I started to think of how wonderful it would be if the next contagion brought something we actually needed: peace, contentment, an abiding happiness.
It felt… logical. We think COVID was a successful virus - but it wasn't, because it caused us to go to war with it. No - a truly successful virus would be one that we would voluntarily choose to spread…
So, could happiness be viral? Could a contagion of joy sweep across the earth? Wouldn't that be something? Because these days, don't we need a respite from the anger, fear, and hatred that seem to be everywhere we look? And if I could tell that story, I will have predicted something not as a warning, but as an invitation.
4. How did you decide on the narrative style and tone for the novel?
That's a tough question to answer. I write stories in all different narrative voices. Sometimes I have to sit down and actively make a choice as to the tone. Other times, as with All Better Now, it just falls into place. It just came out that way…
5. Why do you follow several different characters' perspectives of the virus?
If there's one thing that ties all my books together, it's the idea of perspective. I don't like to give "messages" - what I like to do is pose hard questions and then look at those questions from as many different points of view as possible.
In All Better Now, there were three clear perspectives to explore: Spread the virus, stop the virus, or somehow find a balance between the two irreconcilable positions. I tried as best as possible to go down all three paths and see where each of them led.
6. How did you go about planning the impact this virus would have on individuals and how it would change their everyday lives?
The trick was to avoid the obvious and look at the consequences and advantages we might not consider at first blush.
For instance, one might think that peace and contentment might lead to complacency. But if you give that more thought… who are the people who never venture forth from their lives and never leave their comfort zones? People who are angry and fearful. So, the result would be the opposite - people who are joyful and content wouldn't be complacent. They'd be the ones leaving their comfort zones and proactively exploring the world - because now the whole world has become their comfort zone.
But on the negative side… if you are so altruistic that you put other people's safety ahead of your own, you might jump into freezing water to save somebody, only to drown in the process.
There's so much to explore - I feel like I'm only just getting started!
7. What kinds of questions does the virus raise on a societal level? What kinds of discussions do you hope the novel will raise among readers?
I think, more than anything, it brings into question who and what we are as a species and whether we can evolve beyond the things that plague the darker side of human nature. Do we want the things we say that we want? Can our species survive a fundamental shift toward a more positive human nature?
In terms of discussion, I've been finding that people are already grouping themselves into "Team Rón", "Team Mariel", and "Team Morgan". It excites me to know all the discussion it's going to generate.
8. A virus that makes people content is a great concept - but would you choose to be 'embraced' by the virus, given the chance?
Usually, I would sit back grinning and remain neutral. But I have to come clean and admit that I am very much Team Rón. It's funny because in my book Bruiser, I took the opposite position: that we need the balance that our negative emotions afford us to keep us human - and in the world as it is now, perhaps we do.
But you know what? I'm more than ready to be done with the darkness. Most people can't imagine a world without the worst of human nature because that would be the purview of a different species: a post-miserable humankind. A people who couldn't even imagine what it was to hate, or to fear, or to rage. I don't know about you, but that's a species I'd like to be a part of.
9. Were there areas you needed to research for the novel before writing it, for example, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, pandemics, psychology, etc?
All of those things. Even Buc-ee's convenience stores! Every book always requires extensive research that ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime. But now, I actually want to visit the Svalbard Seed Vault!
10. Other than a brilliant story, what would you like your readers to take from All Better Now?
As I mentioned, I shy away from the idea of a "message", because that would imply I know the answer. But in my experience, people who are convinced they have the answer instantly become part of the problem. So, I guess if there's one message that is pervasive in everything I write, it's: "Think again". Because whatever the issue or situation, it's always more complicated than we think, and the only way to find meaningful answers is to gain greater perspective.
And finally - there is room in the ending for a sequel . . . are you planning or writing one? Can you give us an insight into what might be next for the world you've created?
Oh, definitely - in fact, this is planned as a duology. I'll soon be getting to work on All Over Now, in which the world is plagued by two competing viruses - Crown Royale, which, as we know, brings happiness… and La Llorona, which leaves behind perpetual neediness and discontent.
Which one will dominate? Stay tuned….
All Better Now
