Jeff VanderMeer Talks Craft, Climate, and ‘Absolution’ at The Brattle Theatre

Over 150 attendees filled the Brattle Theatre on Oct. 22 for the second stop on Jeff VanderMeer’s U.S. tour for his book “Absolution,” which came out on the same day. A partnership between The Brattle and the Harvard Bookstore, the talk paired VanderMeer in discussion with Hugo Award-winning writer Kelly Link. VanderMeer discussed the symbiosis of horror and humor and dissected his sci-fi and climate writing experiences with a healthy dose of wisdom and jokes.

“Absolution” is the surprise fourth installment in VanderMeer’s “Southern Reach” sci-fi horror series. The series premiered 10 years ago with the Nebula Award-winning “Annihilation,” which follows a government expedition into Area X, a mysterious region of the United States teeming with anomalous phenomena. “Absolution” has a three-part structure, each following a new expedition. It offers new explanations — and new mysteries — to the story of Area X.

“As I get older, I find that I can write a book too soon, but I can never write a book too late,” VanderMeer said. “And so I let this one sit for a long time.”

VanderMeer had written part of “Absolution” in 2017, but felt it lacked something before he hit on the idea of someone “poring over files at a secret agency” as a frame for the story. In the meantime, during the Covid-19 pandemic, he drafted four novels at his own pace. On July 31, 2023, VanderMeer hit a watershed moment for “Absolution” — one that had been building up for years.

“I saw all the layering and all the connections, and I just started writing. It was a remarkable experience,” he said. “I just wrote morning, noon, and night, which I never do. I always write morning only. And I just kept doing that over and over again until December 31st, when I was done.”

VanderMeer, whose “Southern Reach” series features nature as an uncanny force that defies human comprehension, is also a writer on climate issues. He handles the role with mixed emotions, between the feeling of being unqualified, the exhaustion of thinking about the climate crisis, and the power of writing with positive impact.

“You also have this pulpit to actually effectuate some limited change,” he said. “Like people coming up to me and saying, ‘Because of “Annihilation,” I went into environmental science.’”

Meanwhile, “Absolution” ties together elements of espionage, doppelgangers, and conspiracy theories in an account of a human agency struggling to understand natural phenomena. For VanderMeer, the concept of climate change as a catastrophe beyond human comprehension finds a powerful analogy within the intrinsic horror of the unknown in the “classic weird tale.”

“That’s the point that interests me, is where we misapprehend the moment because we simply don’t have the information,” VanderMeer said.

Reflecting as both an author and the founder of a small publishing press —the Ministry of Whimsy — VanderMeer noted that early in his career, he was a loner who didn’t “understand the rules” of cliquey literary spaces. Still, he found freedom and sustained success in writing only what he wanted to.

“I’ve basically written everything I’ve ever wanted to write the way I wanted to write it. And that’s part and parcel of, really early on, deciding I would be writing regardless of whether I got published. That was really, really liberating for me,” he said.

During the Q&A portion of the talk, VanderMeer expressed hope for climate solutions, characterizing many of the “right ideas” by scientists and policymakers as not “utopian,” but simply “anti-stupidity.”

VanderMeer also took a forgiving view of the numerous interpretations of the “Southern Reach” series, joking about high school teachers’ interpretation of the lighthouse in “Annihilation” as a phallic symbol against his intentions. But when interpreting the books in seriousness, he found that platonic and romantic love were commonly overlooked themes.

“Most of my books are about love on some level,” he said.

Attendee Dylan Carlson Sirvent León, a predoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, had only discovered Jeff VanderMeer’s work a few weeks prior to the talk.

“There was a lot of laughter. There was a big mix of quirky insights, and also quite deep insights into the form of the novel,” he said of the event.

Brookline resident and long-time fan Jacob Aldrich, a project manager, shared positive impressions of VanderMeer’s laid back demeanor.

“Someone had asked him what his energy level was like for the start of this tour, and I thought it was perfect. It was relaxing,” Aldrich said.

Colleen Sullivan, a science writer from Brookline, enjoyed learning about VanderMeer’s writing process.

“Jeff’s comments about his craft were really inspiring,” Sullivan added.

As the “Absolution” tour heads across the U.S., Jeff VanderMeer is sure to captivate attendees with fresh insights about writing and the enduring enigmas of Area X.

—Staff writer Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.