Mark Mustian Explores What it Means to Be Different in 'Boy With Wings'

Award-winning author, Mark Mustian, joins Writer’s Voices to discuss his latest novel, a southern gothic, titled Boys with Wings. Set in the Deep South in the 1930’s, the book follows Johnny Cruel, a boy born with a rare physical condition, that caused him to be treated as a pariah since birth. As Mustian describes it, “…he has these strange things on his back and so that produces a lot of conflict and other stuff. He ends up in this show, this freak show, traveling the South in the 1930’s, and so the book touches on issues of race and religion that are still issues today, but more than anything, of what it’s like to be different.” While not based on a real person, Mustian included the character of Johnny to give his readers insight into what life must have been like for people like him who grew up as an outcast in their community and then continued to be treated as such when people paid to be entertained by their deformities. He said, “I think that was the experience for some human oddities is that they were kept at home, hidden away, their parents were embarrassed by them and suddenly they’re put on this show and they’re sort of the star to some extent, so I tried to capture a little of that in Johnny’s experience in the book as well.”

What does Mustian think is the reason behind society’s captivation with those they view as freaks? “…it’s maybe, it’s like the overused car crash example, that people really don’t want to see but can’t help but look and so I think people are, you know, if you’re a farmer and you’re in the 1930’s and you’re spending all day in a field behind a mule and suddenly here’s this thing to go to and it’s all strange and weird, and it’s exciting to some degree. It brings some excitement to what otherwise may be a not an exciting life so I think… it’s probably that as much as anything.”