Michael Bible Finds Freedom in Failure: “Success Is Killing Us”
In Goodbye Hotel Michael Bible intertwines ecology and spirituality, exploring post-capitalist desolation. The novel invites us to see the world through the ancient lens of a nature destined to outlive us
Interview with Michael Bible: Italy, the Publishing Market, and Public Funding for the Arts
“In the United States my readership is nonexistent; I have no idea how people here can appreciate my work. I feel fortunate to find such attentive readers in Italy. Here people read and value literature; books are not just consumer objects.”
In Italy Michael Bible has two titles published by Adelphi and is already regarded as a cult author. The newest is Goodbye Hotel.
On American publishing and its readers
“The situation is sadly limited. Every day feels as though there’s a moratorium on fiction in America. Arts funding has been cut to almost nothing. The little we had from the State has vanished, and it won’t return for at least the next four years. I’m not optimistic, but I do hope something can change.”
Against the Performance Culture: Failure Is More Interesting
In the United States – and increasingly in Europe and Italy – a performance culture pushes us to progress, innovate and always be “the best.” Michael Bible swims against the current, exploring failure, error and human transience.
“The Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han talks about an ‘achievement society’: we think results and success will free us from anxiety or pain. That society is burning us out. We’re told survival, economic and spiritual, depends on success, and success must be an endless pile-up of victories. Han rejects that idea and so do I: failure and difficulty teach us to grow.”
“We need to redefine success. In America the worst thing is being unemployed; to me that’s the goal. Tethering yourself to a job, a company, a career or any outside validation ruins the soul. Rest and contemplation are the highest spiritual aim. God didn’t create the world in six days just to rest on the seventh; He created the world in six days to rest, full stop. Ultimately rest is death. Life is about entering that rest, that contemplation – slowing down instead of accelerating.”
Michael Bible: Everything Begins with the Bible
Critics hear something “biblical” in Bible’s concise, lyrical prose. Goodbye Hotel opens with a genesis of both story and time itself, full of references to faith and the search for God.
“I grew up religious. One of the first things I read was the King James Bible, so it became part of my life whether I liked it or not. I’m not a believer, but I’m the closest thing to one. In the US South we say ‘Sometimes people aren’t believers, but they’re God-haunted.’ That’s me – haunted by the idea of God even if I’m not religious.”
A New Wave of Faith: Teenagers Are Returning to Church
A recent YouGov study in the UK says more young people are attending church, buying Bibles and taking refuge in religion. Dazed notes that in 2019 only 22 % of 18- to 24-year-olds believed in God; by early 2025 the figure had risen to 45 %.
“It’s similar in the US. We’ve abandoned the young and offered them few ways to find meaning. Work is hard, relationships are hard. There aren’t many places that build community or allow a contemplative worldview. Religion gives them something to cling to. We live in a time when it feels like the young have no future.”
The Writer as God-like World-Builder
Writing comes closest to being a god: inventing stories, creating worlds. But writers can fall into delusions of omnipotence.
“Writing and imagination are part of real life. The best writing mixes both. For two weeks I thought about becoming a preacher – the best way to connect with people. Then I realized writing could do the same. I tell my students: writing isn’t a soufflé; it’s the daily bread we share. Aim to lift someone’s day, not craft elite cuisine. If you’re good, maybe you lift their month or year. Help readers for the time they’re with the book – that’s the goal.”
Michael Bible and the American Void
Bible’s novels paint an America steeped in melancholy, spirituality and disillusion. In The Last Thing Beautiful on the Face of the Earth and Goodbye Hotel he offers a poetic portrait of the Deep South, focusing on marginal communities marked by trauma and longing for redemption. The thread linking the books is Harmony, a small North Carolina town where he grew up.
“There’s a void in American life. That’s why people seek religion – a lack of meaning not tied to material metrics. We quantify everything now: steps, sleep, miles, words, GDP. People quote the stock market like it’s the weather. What happens when those numbers fail? You have nothing to hold you up. Literature, art and music fill that void, connecting you even to people two thousand years ago. If we abandon them, we’re headed for disaster.”
Goodbye Hotel: A Story Told by Two Tortoises
Two unexpected narrators guide Goodbye Hotel: Lazarus, the oldest living creature on earth, and Little Lazarus.
“Tortoises were perfect for exploring time – they live so long. They let me show how people change yet remain one fragment of a larger story.”
Tortoises as a Reminder That Nature Will Outlive Us
Time in Bible’s fiction loops forward and back. As we chase the characters’ lives, the tortoise Lazarus crawls on. In the final chapters a great fire – echoing Bible’s first novel – burns everything: only palms and tortoises remain, symbols of nature’s resilience.
“When disasters hit we imagine the world ending; it’s not the world, it’s us. Earth will be fine. A destroyed ecosystem regenerates. In the South we see plenty of cataclysms, yet plants keep growing. The tortoise, slow and deliberate, embodies nature’s stability. It’s bigger and steadier than we are; we’re ephemeral.”
Adolescence: When We First Become Ourselves
Both novels center on messy, confused teens. “Being a teenager means you’re still open. I like working with the young because at that age they’re still searching. No one told me ‘Slow down’ back then; I want to be that voice for someone through these books.”
Michael Bible: Another Book Already in the Drawer
“I’m in the final edits of a new novel, but publishing is slow. I look for ideas in trash – tabloids, gossip, overheard talk. Last night after a storm a man dried his shoes with a hand-dryer outside a theater: that’s life. If you chase inspiration too hard, you wreck a book. The new idea came from a painting of Ivan the Terrible – intriguing yet cruel. Better not reveal more.”
Goodbye Hotel with Adelphi: Rekindling the Italy-America Literary Axis
Both books pivot on events that change the characters forever. “The event that changed my life was coming to Italy and being published by Adelphi. I’ve had great mentors and friends who shifted my view of writing. I appreciate this country so much. I hope the bond between our nations grows through music, culture, art and literature, because politics will divide us. Literature is our secret thread; if we stay connected, anything is possible.”
Domiziana Montello
