In Sly Self-Help Novel, Selling Clean Water Gets You 'Filthy Rich'
On writing a "self-help" novel
"It started off as a joke. I was in New York, talking with a friend of mine, and we started joking about the idea that sometimes, reading novels felt like hard work, and we were doing it because they were good for us. And I said, 'Well, you know, I'm going to write my next novel as a self-help book.' And I tried to forget that, but it had triggered this notion that, you know, maybe novels really are self-help books. And maybe writing a novel is sort of self-help for me, being more comfortable with my life and the world. And maybe there's a kind of self-help in reading fiction, too."
On the protagonist's evolution as an entrepreneur
"The story of this guy, who is the model for the self-help book, takes you from the village — because right now there are billions of people who are migrating from the world's villages and countryside into the world's big cities ... They're doing it because the rural economy all over the world is collapsing. Farmers and people who make a living from the land are finding it impossible to survive. So the first step is to get out of that place. Come to the city where there are opportunities. And the next step is, in the city, you need an education. And then there's a whole series of steps, basically, that take this character as he grows up and becomes a man, to basically realize, you need to be a really hard-nosed, cunning entrepreneur to make it."