In the midst of a world filled with chaos and disorder, a man chooses to lock himself away from society and live through stock-piled resources and drone-delivered supplies to escape the outside world and intentionally isolate: that is what Apollo Camembert attempts to do in his latest novel, The Isolate. 

At Elgin Community College, Camembert is better known as Eckhard Gerdes, an English professor at ECC. Gerdes has published 16 novels and several other works, including creative non-fiction and poetry collections.

The Isolate is his most recent novel.

“The issue of isolation [during the pandemic] was pretty profound, and I thought I needed to do something about that,” Gerdes said. 

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, life had changed drastically. Things like online learning and social distancing had instilled a sense of isolation in many people. Gerdes wrote The Isolate in response to the idea of isolation; however, he took a different approach to the matter. He wondered what life would be like if one had isolated intentionally.

“I had some friends when I was a young man who lived in Chicago in what is called ‘stealth-housing,’” Gerdes said. “You couldn’t tell it was an apartment from the front, it just looked like a warehouse area. Once you went in, it was beautiful inside.”

Gerdes places the protagonist in stealth housing as a means to avoid contact with the outside world. Founder and manager of Giuliano Ladolfi Editore SRL Giuliano Ladolfi describes the protagonist and his view of the world as a reflection of Western society.

“The protagonist represents the image of contemporary man, closed in a deep solitude,” Ladolfi said. “It is deluded that social networks increase human relationships: it is an illusion; they limit them. In the protagonist, you can mirror the entire Western society”

Ladolfi worked with Gerdes to publish the book in Italian. Gerdes himself had previously published books translated from French into English, but wanted to try translating one of his own works. In the Italian translation of the novel, the title is Isolato.

“I translated [Isolato] for it’s sober, essential, and concrete style,” Ladolfi said. “[Gerdes] is able to immediately convey [his] idea.”

According to the editor and publisher of Black Scat Books Norman Conquest, it is Gerdes’ writing style that draws him to publish his writing.

“I have previously published several books by Eckhard Gerdes, and am always interested in what he’s up to,” Conquest said. “The Isolate, written under the pseudonym Apollo Camembert, while tinged with a slightly different voice, had all the elements I respond to in manuscripts by Eckhard, i.e., fresh-baked absurdism, dark humor, and nifty twists of language.”

According to Conquest, Black Scat Books publishes “absurdist fiction, pataphysics, humor, and works that are difficult to categorize.” Gerdes finds his writing style in this realm of experimental literature.

“When people use the word fiction, frequently, they use it incorrectly,” Gerdes said. “They think it is just story-telling which is a different discipline, a verbal art. Fiction, from its very definition, means something that is fashioned by the hands.”

Apollo Camembert, the pen name Gerdes published The Isolate under, is inspired partly by Guillaume Apollinaire, one of the first poets to use concretism, a technique often used to make visual art out of fiction. 

“Concretism means you aren’t assuming that the text is all going to be lined up in neat lines and stanzas,” Gerdes said. “The design of the text is an element that helps create meaning in the work. The blank space of the page is the canvas and the words are the artistic tool used to fill the canvas.”

The pen name is also inspired by the artist Daevid Allen and his own pseudonym, Bert Camembert. For Gerdes, Allen is an artistic touchstone who also specializes in creative and off-kilter work. 

The name Apollo Camembert signals a change in Gerdes’ work; however, it is not a change in his passion. Gerdes’ love for writing began in his childhood and followed him throughout his life. 

“My father was a book addict,” Gerdes said. “He used to say, ‘This is not a home, it’s a library with sleeping privileges.’ [Writing] is just something that’s part of who I am. I can’t turn it off or on. I’ve been living with it for over 45 years.”

Although Gerdes has been writing for a long time, he keeps finding inspiration in the world which drives him to keep writing.

“Sometimes it’s just a word I hear, or an overheard conversation, or a line from a song that inspires me,” Gerdes said.

When it is difficult to write due to a lack of inspiration, Gerdes advises other writers to let themselves breathe and observe the world around them.

“Don’t panic, nobody can be expected to exhale all the time,” Gerdes said. “There are times when all we can do is inhale, take it in. Observe what is around you and live with it. It will come when it wants to come. In a way, holding it back and letting it percolate in your mind will produce something that is richer and deeper than just going straight to paper.

Gerdes looks to many artists, such as Jackson Pollock and Rainer Maria Rilke, for his philosophy on writing. In the end, he wants to create something that he knows will add to the world. 

“You will know you have done something important with your writing if you can look at it when you are done and say, ‘Only I of all people on this planet could have written this,’” Gerdes said.