“Big Machine” by Victor LaValle: Male protagonist had childhood trauma, searches for the Voice, had memory gap, and is pregnant with angel inside him.

Seemingly Gratuitous Pregnancy

Toward the end of this award-winning novel, the reader learns that the protagonist, Ricky Rice—a biologically normal, African-American man in his forties—has been telling this story to the literal angel inside him, with whom he is now literally pregnant.

This male pregnancy is not only unbelievable, but unnecessary, since the pregnancy could have been given to Ricky’s partner, a woman, and since there have been other angels in this story whose existence had not required a human pregnancy.

And since this pregnancy, qua pregnancy, does not make sense, how can it be understood? As an alternate personality: When a person has another distinct personality inside him, it is called multiple personality.

Seemingly Gratuitous Memory Gap

I had wondered what the reason was for the following comment by Ricky Rice earlier in the novel:

“I must’ve been left alone for a little while, but I couldn’t remember the passage of time. [Mr.] Lake went away, and then, next in my memory, the other Unlikely Scholars crowded round. But my hands were clean [after having read newspapers], so I’d gone down the hall to the coffee room and washed them, but when?” (1, p. 74).

He has had a memory gap, which is a marker for a period of time that another personality had taken over. It is a cardinal symptom of multiple personality (search “memory gaps” for previous discussions). But it is just mentioned in passing, as though the author had considered having a memory gap ordinary psychology, which it would be only for persons with multiple personality.

The Voice

Most of the novel revolves around the search to rediscover the Voice, a previously heard voice of God, or at least a god of some sort.

Since novelists sometimes ask each other if they have found the right “voice” for their new novel—the right narrator, character, and/or muse personalities—the novel’s theme of finding the “voice” might be considered an inside literary joke.

But in general, the thing to keep in mind is this: when people who are not psychotic hear voices, they are often the voices of alternate personalities (search “voice” and “voices”).

Serious Childhood Trauma

However, the novel is not just a joke, because of all the oppression and suffering of the characters, from their childhoods onward. The person who originally heard the Voice had been a slave; whereas Ricky, himself, had been raised in a religious cult, and had seen his sister murdered.

Since multiple personality is one way to cope with childhood trauma, these traumatized characters may be interpreted as illustrating that result. 

1. Victor LaValle. Big Machine. New York, Spiegel & Grau, 2009.