The Evening and the Morning in 𝛕®∪m₽’s America
I fought in [a] war for this country, saw friends die, got PTSD. For what? For this? To be afraid of what the future holds for my wife and daughters? For our healthcare and retirement plans? For our beautiful planet that we humans seem hellbent on destroying in the name of a few cents off at the gas pump? For our republic which nearly lasted 250 years? This is my reward? Ashamed does not begin to describe how I feel.
(Source)
The week before the election I listened to The Evening and the Morning, a doorstopper of a novel set in medieval England. The YouTube algorithm had gifted me with a very interesting writing tip from Ken Follett and I wanted to see this plotting principle of his in action. (Spoilers to follow. You have been warned!)
Follett’s rule of thumb is this: your plot should be turning every four to six pages. Some sort of obstacle or revelation. The turn could be catastrophic or it could be something “small,” but it won’t be insignificant because it has somehow altered the character’s situation and how we view it.
And whoooo boy, the first turning in The Evening and the Morning is a swift hard punch to the gut. Our hero, Edgar, starts the novel embarking upon one kind of life, but by the end of that first chapter he’s on a totally different course owing to factors beyond his control.
The primary villain in The Evening and the Morning is a bishop named Wynstan. He’s a stereotypical baddie, cruel and conniving, using everyone he interacts with like pawns on a chessboard. This “man of God” is guilty of fornication, theft, forgery, arson, and worse. HE MURDERS HIS OWN BROTHER, for crying out loud.
And he gets away with all of it.
…Is this sounding familiar?
Wynstan’s corruption is SO egregious that a naively optimistic reader (ahem) keeps thinking, “WOW. Just when you think this guy can’t get any more flagrantly evil! This time surely he’ll be made to answer for his sins!”
But the comeuppance never happens. Wynstan gets away with EVERYTHING.
That’s how it looks right now. “Don the Con” has zero empathy, zero capacity for self reflection, and certainly no concept of public service. The rational 48% of the American electorate has repeatedly asked, what more does he have to do before the M⩓G⩓ crowd admits they’ve been scammed by a megalomaniacal felon?
But that’s not how cult psychology works. At this point I feel like the man could devour a baby on live television and retain a majority of his followers. This time, when cult members follow their leader off a cliff, the rest of the world might very well be swept along—into a fascist hellscape.
How are we to conduct ourselves inside this bog of eternal stench? How can we best employ our creativity in response to forces beyond our control?
When we read compelling fiction, it may seem that we have dropped through an escape hatch out of ordinary life, but in actuality we are cultivating our emotional intelligence, giving ourselves space to consider how we would feel and act in a hypothetical situation. What would I do if I were Edgar, Ragna, or Aldred discovering Wynstan’s latest act of sabotage? Would that be the crime that finally broke me?
In Follett’s novel, Aldred the abbot builds his center of learning and Edgar and Ragna finally get to live happily after. And where’s Wynstan?
Living in a leper colony, brain and body rotting with syphilis.
Don the Con is here to expose our hypocrisies (because, come on, no Black American is EVER going to wonder “whatever happened to common decency?”). He is here to teach us how to stand up to bullies, and to show us what happens when we defund public education. Clearly these lessons will take longer than eight or twelve years to learn. Bullies don’t always get what they deserve, but their power always comes with a time limit, even if it’s decades longer than it should be. Evening to morning, this plot will go on turning.
So let’s keep going. Keep making, keep dreaming, keep being kind to one another in the midst of all that is cruel and absurd. No matter how they distort the facts, this is our country and our world too.
A few more links:
Octavia Butler’s short story “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” [have you read Parable of the Sower yet?]
Heather Demetrios, Steady As She Goes
George Saunders, A Slightly Altered Course (Here at Story Club)
The most comforting hot breakfast cereal
Love in an Age of Madness, an (admittedly overwrought) 2016-election reaction piece
P.S. The International Rescue Committee is the humanitarian aid organization to which I contribute on a monthly basis. Here’s a link so you can click through and donate if you feel so inclined.
