When I wrote these notes on a new novel, twenty-some years ago, I had one specific book in mind. Now I think that what I wrote could apply to any number of new novels. Guess which one. And, if you're a writer, please don't write another book like this.
Right-wingers have no political opinions, actually, or grievances, according to Writer X, who has lived in some places where it might be reasonable to imagine that X had ever met one, but apparently this was not the case. X's right-wing characters have nothing more than a pathological fear of "change." X does not mention whether these people change their shirts from day to day. People who change their clothes know that there are useful and harmful kinds of change, so if they're motivated by fear of something it's not accurately identified as "fear of change." Fear of unemployment, e.g., or war, or pregnancy, or any other consequence people cite as reasons why they vote for one candidate or another, is not "fear of change." People of any political persuasion can be neurotic. X's right-wingers are credible as neurotic cases but X offers them a sloppy, unhelpful diagnosis.
Who else is portrayed as being every bit as ignorant as the pathetic militia mom in this book? The author and editor, that's who., Despite the superficially "kind" treatment of the fictional militia mom, this book is full of cheap stereotypes and all but empty of insight. Change a few names and references, and it could be a KKK book. We're okay! They're not okay! They're LOOOO-sers! If we find out that you've become friendly with some of them, we won't like you either. Be charitable about them, but don't get involved. The author and editor are thinking exactly the same way the militia mom is portrayed as thinking.
They even tolerate cheap shots for the sake of political correctness--like the scene where the vain, shallow sister gets the last word when she tries to support the homosexual lobby. She doesn't see why young men would care if other men are homosexual. And this the reader may well believe. A man, or an older girl who had ever loved a man, would understand more. Because men don't want to be raped or harassed any more than women do, that's why. It's hard to read this scene as even making a p.c. statement. It is a throwaway scene, making no difference to the plot of the book. It should have been thrown away. If young men are excessively, irrationally worried about being raped or harassed, they're unlikely to be persuaded not to be by a girl's lack of understanding.
The best thing about this book is probably that, by being so second-rate, it may help readers toward an instant, glib psychoanalysis of p.c. types who didn't get enough parental attention when they were little and so grew up to long for a big intrusive government to do the parenting they missed. They don't want to be responsible for their own wellbeing in a dangerous world., They don't want to realize that this is a dangerous world. They want to believe that so long as they're surrounded with other people who share their beliefs, they can go on playing in one big, "safe," happy nursery forever. They hate to think that anyone might prefer to live in a grown-up society that offers freedom and requires responsibility.
The research that would have made this book worth reading would have required the author to admit that people do prefer a grown-up society, and apparently she's not yet ready to deal with it. That research would have had to concede that right-wingnuts could become sane, helpful, and possibly the saviors of our society, by simply rejecting violence and choosing rational (and Christian) ways to reclaim their freedoms. And apparently the writer wants soi much to stay in that nursery world. Nooo! Nooo! I don' wanna grow up! I don' wanna have to work hard! Somebody else is'posta keep me 'safe' and warm and fed! Waaaahhhh!
Some people like little girls who play nicely, keep their clothes clean, and color inside the lines, even when they are fifty years old.,Some do not., But, so long as authors want to write like little girls coloring inside the lines, never looking up to draw their own pictures, they should stick to writing simple school stories about children who (mostly) color inside the lines. Books that pretend to find insights into people different from Writer X are clearly beyond her ability.
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