108: An Eco Thriller
By Dheepa R. Maturi
(GFB)
Interview by Diane Slocum
Bayla is a young woman working for a news service In the US when she suddenly has a disturbing out-of-body experience suggesting that something terrible is happening in the forest in India where she grew up. Before she knows what is happening, she is whisked away to that very forest and to the father she presumed dead. Her mixed feelings over his long absence from her life complicate his insistence that she is the key to saving the planet’s soil and therefore all life on earth from the evil designs of ZedChem. Krak Zed will do anything to prevent Bayla and her father from stopping his destructive scheme and to wreak his obsessive vengeance on their community.
AUTHORLINK: How did your ideas for this story start and progress?
MATURI: You may have heard the saying, write the book you want to read. I wanted to read a hopeful climate thriller, about our intelligence and efforts being used to stop an environmental disaster before it happened, not surviving it after the fact. As I explored the writings of environmentalists, ecologists, and climate activists, that story began to grow on my computer screen. It was an eco-thriller called 108, in which individuals had power and agency and communal actions had a far-reaching impact.
AUTHORLINK: How did the environment become central to your plot?
MATURI: I wanted to draw attention to a topic that doesn’t get a lot of press, even within the climate space: soil degradation and extinction. Soil is an incredible ecosystem, teeming with microorganisms that allow our food to grow and give it its nutritional content. However, soil is rapidly eroding across the country and globe. I thought that presenting this issue within a page-turner, with a ticking clock, frightening antagonist, and unusual heroine, would introduce readers to an issue they might not otherwise learn about.
AUTHORLINK: Did your story follow a plan you laid out from the start, or did it morph into something you hadn’t anticipated?
MATURI: From the beginning I’d planned to weave together the issue of soil erosion, the concept of ecological interconnectedness, and the science of intention in my story. However, my specific plot morphed quite a bit, as did the fate of the characters. I’ll admit almost all of them died at some point or the other, only to be resurrected! The development of Earth as an allegorical figure in the novel was not something I anticipated initially. It was the loss of my mother in real life that brought that character to the forefront, as I explored mothering, grief, and our human relationship with Earth.
AUTHORLINK: Your story evolves on multiple themes. Describe some of the ways you explore family, culture, community, myths, and the other themes you develop. In 108,
MATURI: I placed a specific family-culture-community triangle upon the backdrop of an environmental emergency. I wanted to present a culture and way of life that honors Earth and treats her as a sacred entity, and then explore how that shaped daily practices, family life, and community gathering. With regard to myth, it was a pleasure to share legends and stories with which I’d grown up. More importantly, though, it was a way to infuse Eastern spirituality into a climate thriller, and to ask how we would act and think differently if respect for Earth were central to our actions, if we turned inward for answers as often as we turned outward, and if we paid attention to the interconnectivity of life and nature.
AUTHORLINK: Where did you get your title?
MATURI: At the level of the story, the number 108 is the key to an archaeological mystery and a mythological mystery in the book. In a larger context, though, this number has tremendous significance in Eastern spiritual traditions, as it connects mathematically to the entire cosmos as well as the human body.
AUTHORLINK: What topics did you have to research for your story and where did you search?
MATURI: Lynne McTaggart’s Intention Experiment and Fritjof Capra’s The Systems View of Life provided entry points into two primary thematic threads of 108. Both of these texts led me to additional scientific source material. With regard to soil, scientific articles, documentaries, and advocacy group research provided the information I needed.
AUTHORLINK: What is the message for us right now as our world faces problems not yet as advanced as they are in Bayla’s time?
MATURI: While the problems are not as advanced, they are getting quite close and approaching an irreversible tipping point. This is a critical moment, and there is still time to act. Not only do we have time, we have the resources, research, and ingenuity to make a difference. All that is missing is willingness. Our job is to express our ecological grief, speak out about our concerns, and ask for what we know is needed. It is particularly important not to give in to despair, because despair drains our will and our energy.
AUTHORLINK: Is there a sequel? Or what else are you working on?
MATURI: There is indeed a sequel in the works, still in its early stages. I am also working on a collection of essays that addresses the intersection of culture, identity, and ecology, weaving in stories of growing up in an immigrant family in the U.S.
About the Author: Dheepa R. Maturi is an Indian-American born in New York and raised in the Midwest. Her essays and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and she has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. 108 is her debut novel. She lives with her family in the Indianapolis area.
