When writer-director Ellie Foumbi premiered her film “Our Father, the Devil” to critical acclaim on the festival circuit in 2021, she didn’t expect to follow up her award-winning debut feature with a detour into fiction writing.
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she → premier → writing
A brief exchange via social media with Canadian novelist Iain Reid set her on that unexpected path.
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exchange → set → path
Speaking to the Star at the beginning of a publicity tour for the release of their novel, “A New Kind of Clean” (Scribner Canada), Reid explained that he reached out to Foumbi on Instagram after reading the effusive reviews for “Our Father, the Devil.”
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he → speak → Father
“I thought it was so cool that a movie like hers was getting promoted and receiving so much acclaim,” he said.
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he → think → acclaim
The film tells the story of a refugee who recognizes the new priest at a posh seniors home in rural France as the warlord who murdered her family back in Cameroon.
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who → tell → Cameroon
“Ellie seemed like such a cool artist,” he said, “and I wanted to tell her that I was looking forward to seeing her movie.”
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I → seem → movie
For her part, Foumbi, who was born in Cameroon and raised in New York, was already such a fan of Reid’s work, especially his novel “I’ve Been Thinking of Ending Things,” that she couldn’t believe it was him.
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it → bear → Things
“I thought maybe I was being catfished!” she remembered.
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she → think → ?
After she sent him a screening link to “Our Father, the Devil,” Reid casually floated the idea of collaborating.
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Reid → send → idea
“A New Kind of Clean,” the product of that joint effort, is a surreal, unsettling and drolly funny novel that asks the question: What would you give up to make your wildest dreams come true?
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dreams → ask → What
The novel’s narrator, struggling actress Missy Djalo, receives just such an offer when she auditions for an advertising campaign for Air Free, a bold new technology that promises consumers “homes that are clean, and that stay clean without lifting a finger.”
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that → struggle → finger
Air Free’s “new kind of clean” does more than liberate consumers from the drudgery of housekeeping, it delivers “spotless living for all.”
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it → do → all
Over the course of a gruelling audition at an isolated mansion, Missy learns the price of making her fantasies a reality.
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fantasies → learn → price
“A New Kind of Clean” began as a science-fiction story titled “Dust” that Reid sent to Foumbi when they were still toying with the idea of working together.
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they → begin → idea
The story’s key elements — the Air Free technology and the protagonist Missy — hooked Foumbi on her first reading.
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elements → hook → reading
“The story was so cinematic and so atmospheric,” she said.
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she → say → ?
“I felt like I connected with Missy right away.
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I → feel → Missy
I felt like I knew her.”
Foumbi and Reid began to develop the story as a film project, but as they worked on the script, they realized that they wanted to dig deeper into Missy’s background and her troubled relationship with her mother.
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they → feel → mother
“But that (character exploration) didn’t really fit into a sci-fi film format,” Foumbi said.
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Foumbi → fit → format
As two of Reid’s novels — “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and “Foe” — have been adapted into movies, both artists had enough experience in film production to know that their screenplay could sit in development limbo for years.
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screenplay → think → years
That’s when Reid suggested they write the script as a novel.
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they → ’ → novel
Foumbi was flattered by the invitation: “I was like, oh, you want to do that with me?
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you → flatter → me
And he was like, yeah, let’s write the book.”
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’s → let → book
Though neither of them had ever collaborated on a writing project, they quickly fell into a productive rhythm, sending each other ideas and working on individual scenes and chapters.
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they → collaborate → scenes
“We didn’t feel a ton of pressure to get it done,” Reid recalled.
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Reid → feel → pressure
“It was a lot of fun, like when you’re a teenager with your friends in a band, and you’re just tinkering and coming up with songs in your garage.
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you → ’re → garage
One of us would get an idea, and we’d say, ‘Wow, that’s interesting,’ and then we’d follow that idea and see where it went.”
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it → get → idea
It helped that, in their individual works, Reid and Foumbi have used genre storytelling techniques and motifs to explore complex themes of identity, technology and contemporary culture.
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Reid → help → identity
In other words, they don’t let ideas get in the way of telling a gripping story.
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ideas → let → story
That embrace of horror, suspense and science fiction helped Reid and Foumbi anchor the novel’s high-concept, deeply philosophical themes into a compelling, fast-paced storyline that largely unfolds over the course of a single day.
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that → help → day
“A New Kind of Clean” may be a page-turner, but it’s also a disturbing meditation on the long-term effects of social media and other digital technologies.
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it → ’ → media
The new kind of clean promised by Air Clean is eerily similar to the curated, spotless and optimized lives many pretend to live on social media.
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many → promise → media
“Our lives now are becoming more and more unreal,” Reid said.
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Reid → become → ?
“Living in that virtual realm, we’re promised a clean version of reality, but it’s not real.
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it → live → reality
As humans, we’re so much more complicated.
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we → ’re → humans
We have things that we feel ashamed of in our past or in our families.”
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we → have → families
Foumbi points out that the false lives offered by social media are especially destabilizing for young people.
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lives → point → people
“When you’re young, not only are you trying to find your own way in the world, but you have this machine in your hand that allows you to see how other people are living,” she said.
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she → ’re → hand
“And those people seem to be living a life that will always be out of reach for most of us.
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that → seem → us
I think this is why depression and suicide has risen dramatically amongst people under 20.
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depression → think → 20
…and 6 more, not listed.
The Aporia
