"The Postmortal is the first novel I ever wrote. It's about a world in which a cure for aging has been invented and commoditized. I got the idea while watching a 60 Minutes segment in which the late Morley Safer explored the potential health benefits of drinking red wine. The report zeroed in resveratrol, a chemical in red wine that had potential anti-aging effects."
"Safer wryly mused that, were science to ever fully harness the power of this chemical, we all might be able to live forever. He found the possibility exciting, as anyone might. But in my head, I was like, "Well if we could all live forever, we'd all just end up killing each other." Then I thought about HOW that would go down exactly, so I opened up a Word doc and started writing a manuscript titled The Cure For Death."
The origin of the idea traces to a televised health segment that highlighted anti-aging chemicals in red wine. A cure for aging becomes commoditized, creating a world where people can halt biological decline. The premise imagines excitement about longevity alongside fears of social upheaval, resource strain, and violence as populations stop aging. The concept frames aging as a necessary limiter that prevents stagnation and conflict. A subsequent near-death experience prompted reconsideration of earlier views and plans for a retrospective. The initial concept began under the working title "The Cure For Death."
Read at Defector
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]