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In Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s fictional quick story, “Minimum Payment Due,” the principle character is trapped in credit card debt and determined for a means out.
The indisputable fact that the expertise is widespread — greater than a 3rd, or 38%, of adults within the U.S. have credit card debt, in accordance with Bankrate — makes it no much less scary for the narrator.
Collection brokers will not cease calling him. Meanwhile, he cannot even admit how a lot he owes to his therapist.
“He waited whereas I calculated the determine in my head, the assorted principals, the late charges, the penalties, the surcharges,” Sayrafiezadeh writes. “Then I did what everybody does when they’re consumed with denial and disgrace: I rounded down and lowballed the determine. The lowball was nonetheless rather a lot.”
The narrator turns to self-help books, remedy and even a cult for recommendation, however he is in too deep. No matter how a lot he directs towards the debt every month, it will not go down.
Sayrafiezadeh is a fiction author, memoirist and playwright who lives in New York City. CNBC interviewed Sayrafiezadeh this month about his story, which appeared within the New Yorker in November, and his selection to make use of fiction to discover bank card debt.
Annie Nova: You by no means inform us precisely how a lot the narrator owes in bank card debt. I’m curious, what was the purpose of that omission?
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh: It’s like with Jaws: You do not wish to present the monster an excessive amount of. I assumed it could be higher for the reader to should marvel about it, and to create a determine of their thoughts, slightly than to present them a tough quantity.
AN: You do say the debt climbs from “4 figures to 5.” So we all know that a lot. But that may very well be $10,000, and that may very well be $99,000.
SS: That’s precisely proper.
AN: In the story, you point out that the compound curiosity is rising each day on his bank card debt. We get the sensation that the character won’t ever be capable of get out of this. It’s described in a extremely scary, vivid means. I questioned if bank card debt was one thing you’ve got handled.
SS: I’m really the alternative of this man. I do not even watch for my assertion to pay it off. Knowing that I do not owe anyone something, there is a pleasure for me in that.
AN: Did you do analysis on bank card debt for this story?
SS: No, I didn’t. I simply put myself within the place of somebody who was on this state of affairs. I believe I need to simply really feel it. Maybe all of us really feel it, in a means. Even for those who’re not in debt, it is at all times there, hovering. What if I could not pay my payments? Maybe one thing about 2008 once we had the Great Recession, and everyone was shedding their properties. I do not know. It simply did not appear to be a tough stretch to think about what it could be wish to be this character.
AN: In the opening scenes of the story, the narrator will get a name. It seems to be an outdated good friend, however he is satisfied at first that it is one other name from a group agent. Is the bank card debt so all-consuming for the narrator that he cannot see the rest?
SS: Yeah, completely. Everything he sees, he is seeing by means of debt-colored glasses. Everything is his debt.
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AN: The solely particular person within the story that the narrator confides to about his debt is his therapist. But even to him, he lies, saying he owes lower than he actually does. Why cannot he inform the reality?
SS: There’s a specific amount of disgrace that he is carrying round with it. Maybe there’s additionally some denial about it, as properly. Saying the precise quantity to the therapist would make it actual, and that is not one thing he can actually face.
AN: I assumed it was a extremely attention-grabbing element that the narrator is a software program engineer at a tech start-up. He’s in debt regardless that he presumably has a superb, well-paying job. Why add these particulars about him?
SS: I needed it to be in regards to the algorithms which are working on him, and on us, in our society. He says one thing about how the Tony Robbins e book pops up in his Instagram feed. There are these algorithms which are focusing on us with promoting that we’re vulnerable to. But I needed to additionally make him somebody who’s creating these sorts of algorithms, in order that he is part of this cycle. I needed to have the irony of him writing code, but additionally vulnerable to the code that he writes.
AN: So how does this character discover himself with a lot bank card debt? Is it a spending downside?
SS: That’s an awesome query: Why is he in debt? The solely factor he says is that he’s vulnerable. So that is all he is aware of. And that is not likely a solution. But what it means is that he’s susceptible; he is susceptible to be preyed upon. The story actually does not get to the foundation causes of why he’s working the way in which he’s. I needed to have or not it’s extra of a thriller. He does not know why he’s who he’s, why it is come to all of this, with all of this debt.
AN: Do you assume your story will make folks really feel rather less alone with their very own debt?
SS: That can be nice. I attempt to write about sure issues which are troubling and that plague a solitary character. But yeah, the story may make somebody really feel like, Oh yeah, this isn’t simply me. Maybe that is how the story ends, with readers not feeling as alone.
