Pascal Bouquillard is a French-born musician, conductor, and writer whose eclectic career spans classical performance, progressive rock, and political reflection. A graduate of the École Normale de Musique de Paris, Bouquillard has toured internationally, co-founded ensembles, and conducted acclaimed productions across Europe. After relocating to the United States, he turned his creative energy toward writing, combining years of research, reflection, and cultural critique to create his debut dystopian work, Eden: The Final Solution.
What inspired you to write your first book?
It wasn’t so much inspiration as it was a kind of desperation—a need to unload all the information I had absorbed and try to make some sense of it. That’s why I decided to write a novel. It had to be a dystopian one, not only because I’ve always loved the genre, but because it allows the writer to stretch the absurdities of human systems to their extreme limits.
We often take pride in humanity’s accomplishments—from our complex societies to our conception of divine beings, or our endless questioning and sometimes answering of the universe. But let’s be honest: most of these discoveries and ideas weren’t ours personally. You didn’t make them. I didn’t either. Most ordinary people didn’t. In fact, many of us still struggle to understand things that were discovered or invented long ago.
What truly sparked Eden—the final straw, as you say in English—was the realization that money, this incredible invention that governs nearly every aspect of our lives, is essentially created out of thin air. That insight shook me to the core. It felt like the ground had dropped out from under everything I thought I knew.
So I started writing a story about it. I ended up putting it at the very end of the novel. I called it Genesis—just felt like the right name, like it rang a bell; reminiscence of something else.
How much of the book is realistic?
All the foundations of Eden are firmly rooted in our present reality. I simply took ideas from our time and pushed them to their logical—and often extreme—limits to see where they might lead. Eden is where the process ended up.
To fully understand how deeply this story is grounded in the world we live in, I highly recommend reading the eBook version. It allows you to easily move back and forth between the chapters and the endnotes. You can also visit the companion website: https://www.edenxx84.com/new-page, where you’ll find references and additional context.
Some of the key themes and elements drawn from real-world ideas include:
- The inversion of the earth poles
- The microchip implanted in the heads of the Soldiers of Liberty
- A genetically modified plant created to combat pollution
- The desolate landscapes of the abandoned countryside
- The monetary system based on debt
Throughout the narrative, I’ve also included excerpts from both historical and modern political speeches. These include President Kennedy’s funeral address and President Bush’s speech following 9/11to help the reader reflect on what was said at the time and how it turn out. But the most disturbing, in my opinion, is the speech delivered by the character Nucleus in the second half of the novel. Nearly word-for-word, it’s drawn from the writings of Cecil Rhodes—a British imperialist so influential that an entire country, Rhodesia, once bore his name.
What is said in that speech from 1877 is so shocking, I’d prefer you discover it on your own within the story. But if you wish to verify the source, the original testimony is linked in the endnotes and available on the website.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
As I was saying earlier: we, the people, haven’t truly created or discovered much on our own. Until the second half of the 18th century, human societies functioned much like bee or ant colonies—ruled from above, with most individuals lost in the mass doing their best to survive within a rigid hierarchy. We had kings who governed over us, often not in the interest of the common good, and the vast majority of people lived separate lives, managing their job and their life with the little they had. Some had more than others, but no one came close to the wealth and power of the king.
Then came a turning point in the second half of the 18th century: the American and French Revolutions. Americans and French collectively said, “Enough.” We declared that the pursuit of happiness for each individual was a legitimate and noble goal. We “discovered” that individually was worth fighting for. With that, we began to reshape society. We rejected monarchies and built something new. But in doing so, we made a critical mistake: instead of true self-governance, we accepted a model where a select few would represent the many.
And so the seed of corruption was planted. Because if voting is a form of decision-making, electing someone to vote for you is essentially giving away that power. This is the core idea I explore throughout the novel.
In that section, I draw inspiration from the powerful video Money as Debt by Paul Grignon and take its logic to the edge of absurdity—and beyond. But the deeper root of the problem, as I first introduce in Eden, lies in our decision to entrust power to a privileged minority. Of course, those in power will make decisions that benefit themselves. Who can blame them? Wouldn’t the vast majority of us do the same in their position.
This isn’t about left versus right, conservatives versus liberals. That binary exists largely to divide and distract us. We argue over hot-button issues—Medicare, abortion, guns, woke—inside a prison with an open door, forgetting the key issue: we have no real power, because we do not decide. Those we elect somehow do, and the ones funding their campaigns? They really do. This is what Eden id trying to illustrate.
In effect, we’ve recreated the very system we tried to escape in the 18th century. Don’t get me wrong—representative democracy was the best system of its time. But now, in the 21st century—an era of the Internet and secure global apps, of online banking for instance and instant communication—we can dare to dream of something better. That “something better” could be real democracy. Direct democracy. A system where every willing voice can counts—not just every four years, but every day.
This is what the Edenians briefly experience in the final part of the novel.
What are you working on now?
It took me over five years from the moment I finished Eden to when I finally found the courage to review, edit, and revise it. During that time, I volunteered on a project aimed at drafting rules of procedure for a truly democratic assembly. This deeply rewarding and politically galvanizing experience showed me—concretely—that direct democracy is not only imaginable but entirely possible.
Building on that momentum, I wrote the first draft of a guide intended to explore how such a democratic model could be implemented within both the American and French political systems.
After many editing and improvement of Eden original draft, this guide, Towards an Atomic Democracy, ended up, , not just a companion to the novel—it’s part of the plot itself. For readers who wish to go beyond the fiction, the draft is available for download on the Eden website at the bottom of this page https://www.edenxx84.com/ .
I’m currently working on reviewing, editing, and refining this guide. But I can’t complete it alone. We need as many minds as possible to help improve the system and lend it legitimacy. After all, imagining a new democratic framework that could truly emancipate the many—isn’t that an incredible project?
Do you have any unusual writing habits? What is your favorite time to write, and why?
I think I do. I wrote both Eden and the Guide almost entirely while swimming. Three times a week, I swim for 40 to 50 minutes with a mask and snorkel. With my head submerged and no need to think about breathing, I enter a state of deep focus—somewhere between laser-sharp concentration and open-ended daydreaming. Before diving in, I simply reread the last passage I wrote. Then I swim. Usually, after one or two sessions, I know exactly what comes next.
Of course, I still have to sit down and write it all out. And sometimes the story takes unexpected turns—often because a character “refuses” to follow the path I had in mind. But by then, the hard part—the core of the storyline—is already there, shaped in the quiet rhythm of the water.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
- George Orwell, for 1984
- Aldous Huxley, for Brave New World
- Cormac McCarthy, for The Road ( Some of Eden’s characters even meet the father and the son of this novel somewhere along the storyline)
- P. D. James, for Children of Men
- Taylor Hackford and Andrew Neiderman, for the Devil’s Advocate
And movies all course
- Ridley Scott, for Blade Runner
- Terry Gillian, for Brazil
- Richard Fleischer, for Soylent Green
What is your favorite quote?
Francis Dunnery: “if you believe that pigs can fly, very soon pigs will fly”
and “ if you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got” from the same song writer.
Who is the most supportive person in your life when it comes to your writing?
My wife, Pascale, yes, we have the same first name!
I would never have crossed the ocean to live in the United States if it hadn’t been to marry her—and if I hadn’t made that move, Eden would never have been written in English, or written at all. Back in France, I was comfortably numb, deeply rooted in my life: content, but too busy with work—and recovering from it—to make space for self-reflection.
My new life brought an unexpected luxury: free time. Much of it went to staying connected with my young son, who remained in France, and to adjusting to my wife’s world. But beyond that, I suddenly had room to think. And to explore. So I did.
Pascale’s beloved late uncle had been a writer, and I was struck by the reverence she held for him. Looking back, I realize I began writing partly in response to that legacy—perhaps to compete with it, though I wasn’t fully aware of that at the time.
From the very beginning, she gave me honest, invaluable feedback. My routine became swimming in the evening and writing late at night, often in bed. The next day, she’d read what I had written and give me her blunt, unfiltered opinion. I would argue back, defend my choices, and eventually rewrite when necessary—usually most reluctantly. One particular decision took over three years to settle. She was right, of course.
She remained instrumental through the final stages, especially when I was ready to give up out of exhaustion or discouragement. She simply refused to let me publish as long as she could spot even the smallest typo or inconsistency—and she found plenty.
How did you come up with the title?
First it was: 2084, the 4th Reich
Then Eden xx84
Then, after comments regarding the title from one of my good friends and beta reader: Eden – the final solution. I liked very much the antinomy both provocative and so true in regard to the story.
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Editing, improving, correcting
What would the logline be for your book?
Every truth goes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, then it is violently opposed and finally it is accepted as self-evident.
Connect with Pascal on his website https://www.edenxx84.com
Eden: The Final Solution is available for purchase on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Eden-Final-Solution-Pascal-Bouquillard-ebook/dp/B0F7F9JL9L