For 20 years, Larissa MacFarquhar grappled with extreme goodness, the kind of behavior that makes most of us look like schmucks. But worse, these do-gooders make us feel anxious or skeptical or outright dismissive. Do-gooders effectively carry the distress of the world so severely that they sacrifice their own basic pleasures to drastically help others. Most of us can’t — or don’t — live in such a way.
In her first book, Strangers Drowning, MacFarquhar strings together a handful of profiles, including the story of a couple who adopts 20 kids, some with disabilities. Then there is a man so obsessed with animal rights he forfeits basic cleanliness, deeming it a waste of time. There is woman who chooses a dreary, high-paying career just so she can give more money to people she’s never met. One couple starts a leprosy colony in rural India. As the title suggests, the book is necessarily thought provoking. But MacFarquhar has done much of the heavy lifting. Her prose reads easily and freely, though without sacrificing depth.
A decades-long writer at theNew Yorker, MacFarquhar has pursued long-form stories with incredible detail and aptitude. She often finds herself exhausted after an interview because she became deeply invested in the lives of those to whom she spoke. Ahead of her open-to-the-public talk at UCSB’s Campbell Hall on October 5, MacFarquhar spoke to The Santa Barbara Independent. Below is our conversation in an edited form.