Avery Wiseman has never eaten anyone. But he's written about it, in The Next Taboo: Curing Cancer Through Cannibalism. Wiseman's newest book has been receiving national attention, mostly from people who have mistaken the good doctor's first novel for nonfiction.
Laura London
Food for thought: Fictional or not, some of Avery Wiseman's ideas are hard to swallow.
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Wiseman doesn't seem all that concerned about the mix-up. The retired MD and former Harvard Medical School professor of psychiatry is more interested in the flatbread menu at Kazimierz, a wine bar that's so carefully tucked away in Old Town Scottsdale that we both got lost on our way there. Over Merlot and pork-and-fig pizzas, we discuss cannibalism, prostitutes and matricide.
New Times: Novelists sometimes talk about the truths that inform their fiction. I shudder to think what yours might be.
Avery Wiseman: The story was really born of listening to people talk about death. I began to wonder: If it was discovered that there was a cure for cancer, and it was cannibalism, would people -- other than Jeffrey Dahmer -- take the cure? It would take a certain kind of person. Not everyone would do it.
NT: You think some people would choose death rather than eat human flesh?
Wiseman: Oh, certainly. I think more people wouldn't eat another person than would. Which is odd, because cannibalism is part of a lot of religious rituals, like transubstantiation, even communion. You know, "Eat my body; drink my blood."
NT: Would you eat someone?
Wiseman: Well, if I were in the middle of some significant project and wanted to stay alive long enough to finish it, I might become a cannibal. It's like getting an organ transplant, only a very extreme version of that. I mean, some women go to sperm banks. They choose the semen of intelligent, affluent men and have it put inside them. On one hand, that's a smart way to get a good baby: "I'd like the semen of Sir Isaac Newton, please." On the other hand, it's just getting impregnated by a dead white man.
NT: What kind of research did you do while you were writing your novel?
Wiseman: Well, I didn't eat anyone. I worked with a lot of sick people, and for the cannibalism part, I simply read books. I read a lot of Margaret Mead. I visited New Guinea, but never got up to where the cannibals are. I don't know much about cannibals, but then neither do most people. So I was safe there. I have known many sublimated cannibals. I saw one girl in the Arctic, a beautiful blond girl, who was eating raw seal meat. I was horrified, but the blood dripping down the face of a nice-looking blond girl brought up all sorts of fantasies.
NT: If cannibalism were a cure for cancer, where would we get flesh to eat?
Wiseman: There's no telling how far some people would go. Some people might be grave robbers or offer bribes to funeral directors, just to get a piece of meat. There are certain men who will kill prostitutes just to eat them. You don't read about it, but it's not uncommon. There are cannibals out there. I don't know them personally, because most of them are in insane asylums.
NT: The book has a subtitle, which novels usually don't. Which makes The Next Taboo look like nonfiction.
Wiseman: I wanted to grab people's attention. I wanted to novelize this because I don't want people to think that I'm recommending cannibalism as a cure for cancer. There are people just desperate enough who would go that way. It was mostly an attention-getting ploy.
NT: What kind of response has the book gotten?
Wiseman: Well, I've retired to Scottsdale, and no one talks about books out here. You go to a party on the East Coast, and people ask you how your book is doing. The other old guys in Scottsdale don't read. All they care about is golf.
NT: The hero, Simon, has a very special relationship with his Aunt Gina.
Wiseman: I've known lots of people who've slept with family members. And there are many, many men who prefer older women. I mean really older women. I don't mean 17-year-old boys who want a 35-year-old woman. I'm talking about crones. We could go outside right now and find a half-dozen men who feel this way. Aunt Ginas aren't that unusual. But they're harder to find. You can't usually just go to a bar and pick up an old woman. And prostitutes over 40 are practically unheard of.
NT: Simon was raised by a whore. Is that from your life?
Wiseman: I've been a psychiatrist for more than 50 years, and I have heard every possible story. Sometimes prostitutes become pregnant, and they decide to keep the baby. I knew one woman who kept her child in the room with her while she was screwing a customer. That's a little bit on the taboo side.
NT: I suppose. The cannibals in your book make a smelly stew out of people. Why a stew?
Wiseman: Well, why not? Meat loaf didn't seem like a good idea. It's like a blessed broth, like the witches' brew in Macbeth. To the natives, it doesn't smell bad.
