IslandsJacob Sackin |
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Published by
Blue Works,
a division of
Windstorm Creative
About the Author
Biography | Interview | Contact
Biography
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Jacob Sackin grew up in Columbia and Kansas City, Missouri. After graduating with a B.A. in English at the University of Kansas, he spent a year volunteering in McLeod Ganj, India, the home of the Tibetan government in exile. There he volunteered at Yong Ling Adult English School and worked as editor for the local paper, Contact.
Upon his return to the U.S., Jacob moved to California, where he worked as a naturalist for more than three years at Foothill Horizons, San Joaquin Outdoor School and Exploring New Horizons. It was during this time that he learned much of the environmental science that plays an important role in Islands and practiced animal tracking and many of the other bushcraft skills that the characters use. Before attending graduate school in Flagstaff, Arizona at Northern Arizona Univeristy, Jacob spent seven months in South America, where he volunteered at Inti Wara Yassi Animal Refuge in Villa Tunari, Bolivia and at an organic farm in Patagonia, Chile. While earning a Master's degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, at NAU, Jacob also taught English classes and worked at Willow Bend Environmental Education Center.
Jacob then moved to Eugene, Oregon where he taught English, guitar and field science at Northwest Youth Corps Outdoor High School. He is now the director of Sempervirens Outdoor School in Boulder Creek, California. Jacob has written and illustrated several children’s stories and is working on the sequel to Islands.
An Interview with Jacob Sackin
In Islands, the people of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix have been moved inside of giant pyramids. Do you believe that one day this is actually going to happen? No. Islands does not portray what I think the southwest will look like hundreds of years from now. It does, however, give a glimpse of a possible future. I see Islands as a warning of what might happen if the world continues to do next to nothing to combat human-induced climate change. Personally, I am optimistic about how people are going to adapt to a world transformed by global warming. However, I also believe that Phoenix could be the first city in the United States that has to be evacuated because of the effects of global warming, unless of course you consider the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina to be the first.
What I found interesting about the pyramids was that you present them as being almost completely sustainable. They are covered with solar panels, surrounded by wind turbines, and all the people inside are vegetarian, yet the main character, Saskia, still isn’t happy. Why not? Saskia feels alienated, not only from her family, but from the whole society as well. She struggles with the fact that her father, aunt and grandfather live in one pyramid, and she lives in another. A lot of families in the United States are spread out like this, and it can be difficult. I live in Eugene, Oregon, yet almost all of my family lives in Kansas City, St. Louis and New York, and many of my friends live in Colorado and California. It’s hard to really be a family, or a community of friends, over the telephone or internet, and it puts a strain on how you see yourself as a part of a whole.
The other reason Saskia feels alienated is that the society in Islands has been completely separated from the natural world. Human beings are animals, and for millions of years we evolved outside. I think it is natural that a person would be depressed if they didn't have any other animals or plants in their life, both in my novel and in the real world today, because it is not what our species is instinctually used to. Again, it leads to feeling of loneliness, and not belonging to something bigger than yourself.
As you just mentioned, in your novel, civilization, at least in the southwest, has been separated from the natural world, yet inside the pyramids there are constantly images of animals and plants broadcast on giant screens. Why is this? A common theme throughout Islands is nature as entertainment. Even Saskia, who loves birds and spends so much of her time watching them out the window, does so mainly for her own self-interest. Mostly, I see the society I have created inside the pyramids as being very similar to the one we live in today. Most interactions people have with animals are either through the windows of their cars or houses, or on a screen. Even when you’re looking at birds or other animals through binoculars, there is still that glass barrier between you and the animal. Natural images are broadcast on giant screens inside the pyramids to keep people entertained, and to help them forget that they have been separated from nature, just as it is done today on the Discovery channel and other nature programs.
Islands also has characters living much like traditional hunter-gatherers in the wilderness. Do you think that global warming has the potential to reduce members of our advanced civilization to this state? I do. If you look at what is happening in the world in terms of oil depletion and all the products we use everyday that rely on petroleum, you see that our way of life in the U.S. is not sustainable. Cars, toothbrushes, pesticides and fertilizers, rain coats, plastic bags -- all these come from oil, and it is running out; not to mention that the continued production of all of these things causes global warming. As I said before, I don’t necessarily think that our society is going to collapse, but unless families, neighborhoods and cities work on making themselves more self-sustainable, meaning producing their own electricity with solar panels and wind turbines, as well as growing their own food, everyday conveniences we’ve grown accustomed to, like hot water, are going to be gone.
Abbie and her two brothers are the last of a people who were abandoned outside when the wealthier people moved inside the pyramids. Do you think there will be more human rights abuses in the future because of global warming? Judging from recent events, like the tsunami in Indonesia and the flooding of New Orleans, sadly, the rich are often the first priority. I think that the United States is going to get a lot less politically correct about the stratification of our society, and that many people will be left behind. To me, the pyramids are like Noah’s ark, keeping the people safe from a world that has become unfriendly; except this time, tickets on the ark go to the highest bidder.
The pyramids themselves are divided into the upper and lower levels. Did you mean for this to reflect the division you see in our society today? I see the pyramids as an allegory not for the United States but the world as a whole. Only 1/4 of the population lives in the upper levels of the pyramid and 3/4 lives in the lower levels. This is roughly equivalent to what we consider to be the populations of the first and third worlds, respectively. In our globalized society, we have become neighbors with the entire planet. Few today are ignorant of the poverty and human rights abuses that exist in, say, India or Sudan, and I hope that Islands can make people more aware of how our habits in the U.S. are connected to these tragic situations.
Contact
Email Jacob Sackin: jacobsackin at hotmail.com