Please tell us about your book.

I write about the Trickster, an archetype found in every culture, often an animal or even a bug. They can be a spider, fox, rabbit (Bugs Bunny!), or even a fly. The book covers showcase Trickster demigods from Indigenous America. In Disruptive Play I dressed up a coyote in a businessman’s suit, putting Trickster in a contemporary context and suggesting a joke, where Trickster infiltrates corporate America. Tricking Power features Raven, the Trickster god of the Pacific Northwest, depicting the almost perfect tale of how the Raven tricks power—the Chief—into performing an act of love. Raven steals the sun and gives light to the world.

Please tell us a little about yourself.  

Though quite young at the time, I was aware of the war in Vietnam. Living in the Bay Area, I witnessed and participated in a vigorous anti-war movement and a joyful counterculture. Without diminishing the horrors of war, the protest movement was artistic and playful; rather than confronting power with power, power was mocked. Humor is more than getting a laugh; it gets to the truth and can even be a lie that reveals a greater truth. Impressionable me was indelibly marked, for example, by the satire of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and the yippie exorcism of the Pentagon, as activists attempted to levitate it 300 feet off the ground. Thus, my guiding light has been how grown-ups who retain the ability to be playful as they were when children have something of great value to share, in culture and in politics.

How did you develop your subject? 

An early draft of Disruptive Play viewed the world through this lens of the playful adult and featured profiles of Banksy, Anonymous, the Yes Men, Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Jarry, the Beats, Andy Kaufman, Abbie Hoffman, even King Lear’s Fool. But then a colleague introduced me to Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World,and that changed everything. I had to go back and rewrite the book through the more illuminating lens of the Trickster. Over the course of writing both books, our society’s ominous and growing fixation with the warrior—solving problems by defeating adversaries—made the Trickster’s approach even more relevant to the cultural and political issues of today.

How has critical and/or reader response influenced the way you think about your work? 

When giving talks for Disruptive Play throughout the U.S. and Canada, I got feedback about the fact that many of my protagonists were White males. This came from the culture in which I grew up, but the response inspired me to write Tricking Power, whose two hearts are the Trickster in Afro-Atlantic culture, from Sun Ra to HBO’s Watchmen, and the female Trickster—which is tricky. Nigerian anthropologist Ayodele Ogundipe writes that Tricksters are ultimately without gender. In Tricking Power,I wrestle with this, teasing out the patriarchy in order to get a clearer view of the feminine in the Trickster. In this companion book, you will find illustrative profiles of Mae West, Muhammad Ali, the Marx Brothers, Yoko Ono, Sacha Baron Cohen, and more.

How did you research your book?  

I build my library around themes. I buy books more than I use the library or even the internet. Besides taking notes, I mark up books with Post-its, notes in the margins, and highlights. And if you’re writing to make the world a better place, research includes participation. Be with people; notice how they behave and how they change. Notice where our collective psyche is and where, for good or ill, it might go.

Find out more about Shepherd Siegel at https://shepherdsiegel.com/books/.

Portions of this Q&A were edited for clarity.