A deadly virus is spreading across the world at a rapid rate. But those who recover experience a unique longlasting effect—complete joy. The virus rids people of sadness, anxiety, anger, and jealousy, and those in power race to find a cure for fear they’ll lose control in the chaos. The novel follows three teenage protagonists as they each confront different struggles in the face of a cultural reckoning. Shusterman, who once wrote for the UC Irvine student newspaper, has gone on to pen dozens of novels, including the bestselling “Scythe,” which is being developed into a TV series.
What made you pursue becoming an author?
When I was at UC Irvine, I spent my summers as a camp counselor, and I got to be known as the camp storyteller. During the school year, I would write those stories into books to bring back the next summer for the kids. That’s what got me into writing. My stories were for younger kids but eventually as the stories got complicated, it ended up being all of the older kids who wanted to hear them.
What is the inspiration behind this new novel?
I was actually at a bookstore event when I got the idea, and it was right after the world opened up after COVID. Everybody was still social distancing, and the conversation started going toward the idea that a lot of my books are prophetic. Somebody in the back of the audience shouted, why don’t you just predict something happy? I kind of thought about that and took that on as a challenge. What if it’s a pandemic of joy? And I thought about this idea of a virus that takes care of all of your problems. You become content and happy for the rest of your life.
How does the happiness virus morally change the characters?
There are three schools of thought, and I try to divide that between the three main characters. The character of Rón suffered from depression all of his life and wants to catch it. Then there is Morgan on the opposite extreme, and she thinks that this is terrible and that if we lose our negative emotions, civilization will stop progressing. Then you have Mariel, who is kind of in the middle, who sees the value of this but wonders if we can survive that upheaval, or whether we’ll destroy ourselves in the process. I try to give them even weight throughout the story. I wanted them all to be in a position to affect the world.
What do you hope readers take away from this book?
I never have lessons in my books; I pose questions. A lesson or a moral implies that there’s a simple answer to a complex problem. I don’t have any of the answers, but I think the best that I can do as an author is to come up with really good questions. If there’s one thing that I would say is consistent through all of my books in terms of the message, it’s: Think again. If you think you have the solution, think again. The moment that you are convinced that you have the solution to the problem, you become a part of the problem.
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