PIEN HUANG, HOST:
Reality TV shows may feel like their own dystopia to both fans of the genre and those who frown on it - cutthroat competitions, limited resources, being watched all the time, and not knowing who to trust. But what if they offer sweet relief to a world outside? That's one of the questions posed in a new novel, "The Compound." The game in the book kicks off with 10 women and nine men who compete for both personal rewards, like a comb or a robe, and in group competitions for house coffee or a couch. They live together in a compound in the middle of an unnamed desert. The book is a debut, written by Aisling Rawle, and when we spoke, I had to know where the idea for this book started for her - with the game, with a character, with an image?
AISLING RAWLE: Yeah, it started with an image. I woke up one day with a really clear image in my head, which was two beautiful women waking up in this glamorous but sort of dilapidated house. And as they walked around the grounds, they found the sleeping bodies of other beautiful women. And I really was intrigued by that, and I wrote that scene, and I was very curious as to what the context was and how this sort of absurd situation came about. So I wrote the next scene and then the next, and then it kind of took the shape of a reality television show. And then once I had the rules established, the sort of characters took over, and it took its own sort of life form.
HUANG: I also was curious. Was there any particular shows that you were or are watching? Like, what kind of research did you do in crafting this worlds?
RAWLE: My meticulous research was binge-watching "Love Island" over lockdown.
(LAUGHTER)
RAWLE: That was it.
(LAUGHTER)
RAWLE: And me and my housemates having sort of gossipy conversations during the outbreaks (laughter).
HUANG: There is a lot of terrific tension in the book, and unlike loads of other reality shows, the contestants here are forbidden to talk about their outside lives. And yet, they have to share beds with someone of the opposite sex, so tell us a little bit about that rule.
RAWLE: (Laughter) Yeah. I like the idea that the show didn't care about the sort of individual. It didn't care about who you were. It kind of cared about how desirable you were, and that was the reason that you rooted for someone. It wasn't because you knew that they were a certain, you know, age or profession or, you know, education. It was purely how sort of desirable do they seem in this moment? Who can they attract? And what sort of brands can they attract, as well? And that even though the contestants don't know anything about each other, they do still seek a sort of hierarchy, and they do that through these tasks. And one of the first tasks that they have to do is rank each other according to their attractiveness. And this gives them an immediate sense of hierarchy, which is unbelievably vapid and superficial, but it's nevertheless binding for them. And they establish almost, you know, within hours, this is the most attractive person here. They have the most power.
HUANG: One of the things that I really enjoyed was the self-awareness of the main character, Lily, and I'm wondering if you could read a passage for us.
RAWLE: Yeah. So in this scene, it's just the girls in the compound at the minute. The boys have yet to arrive, and they're all sort of sussing each other out, almost like sort of desert animals, sort of sniffing at each other, trying to find out who's the sort of threat and who might be an ally and also trying to establish their own sort of place within this group of women.
(Reading) The truth is, we weren't interested in getting to know each other, not yet. We were assessing who was the most beautiful and who might cause trouble. At the same time, we were analyzing what our own place in the group might be. Within minutes of speaking to the girls, I knew that I was one of the most beautiful and one of the least interesting. I kept smiling and chatting pleasantly while I examined the girls before me, comparing them to myself and trying to see them as the boys might.
HUANG: The main character, Lily, who's speaking there - Lily, again and again, is praised for her beauty, but she knows that it's not totally an asset in the game because people might think that she's soft or weak. Tell us about that - I guess that tension within Lily in the game.
RAWLE: As Lily kind of says to us there, which is quite a revealing thing so early in the story - and she doesn't give us a lot of information about herself, but she really does insist upon the reader that she's, you know, beautiful and not a whole lot else. And she kind of feels that, you know, that is her strength, and she has to play to it. And I think that she kind of moves through life in the compound with the sort of assumption that people are judging her for being, quote-unquote, "stupid" and that she sort of has to sort of attract as many eyes and be as desirable as possible in order to sort of make waves.
But I personally think that Lily has great smarts, and, you know, intelligence and intellect are not mutually exclusive, and Lily kind of displays lots of forms of intelligence throughout her time there. There are times when the producers kind of play on Lily's own insecurity of not being the most intelligent person there and sort of make fun of her. And in that regard, she is sometimes a sort of - like, a jester performing in a royal court.
HUANG: How did you come up with some of the rewards? I thought they were, you know, perfectly diabolical - you know, spit in your bedmate's mouth for sun loungers or banish someone from the compound for pasta.
RAWLE: I kind of wanted it to feel just so meaningless (laughter), that it really - I kind of - in my head, I was imagining sort of lazy producers going, I don't know, what'll we do? And just any old thing - and their sort of carelessness, you know, caused a lot of, you know, grief and embarrassment for the contestantsand, hopefully, you know, fun for the viewer/reader. But that, you know, I don't think that being forced to consider how far am I willing to embarrass myself or degrade myself or to harm others or myself in order to win this thing - it's not really a direct correlation. You know, spitting in someone's mouth for whatever - a sun lounger - is not proportionate.
(LAUGHTER)
RAWLE: But these are the sort of, you know, these are the tasks that they're given, and they have to kind of settle for whatever reward is offered.
HUANG: Is this an allegory for you? Do you think of it as a warning for what our future could hold?
RAWLE: I think, yes, I suppose. "The Lord Of The Flies" was definitely in my head when I was writing it and that, you know, even though this is a sort of fun-in-the-sun story, the kind of sinister tone of the book, to me, isn't a symptom of a reality television show, more so a symptom of a sort of more naked look at late-stage capitalism (laughter).
HUANG: Aisling Rawle - her new novel, her first, is "The Compound." Aisling, thank you so much for joining us.
RAWLE: Thank you for having me.
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