Tag Archives: novel

How Style Reveals Character

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Heather Cox Richardson has a tasty piece this morning (see Letters From an American, on Substack) about the moment when Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to U. S. Grant – Lee dressed in a brand new dress uniform, Grant in the worn and dirty private’s outfit he’d worn the day before, with scant insignia added to indicate his true rank. That instance of appearance as an indicator of the two men’s divergent characters, brought back to mind some thoughts I’d been working on not long ago, before they were (rightly) eclipsed by the chaos of our nation’s attack on Iran. Herewith:

Viewing the renderings of Mr. Trump’s replacement for the White House’s late East Wing, I’ve been surprised no one seems to be questioning the description of it as a “Ballroom.”

To these ears, the zeal and subterfuge with which The Donald is pursuing this particular bit of noncritical infrastructure suggests there is more at stake here than his enthusiasm for ballroom dancing and debutants (though the latter could be a factor…).

Administration PR pretends this cavern is vitally necessary for legitimate diplomatic events, but given Mr. Trump’s disdain for actual diplomats and his preference for small group strong-arming, that seems a stretch. More likely, the room’s programming will lean toward pseudo-events designed to flatter and reward loyal contributors to his continual fund-raising ventures (including, of course, the cost of this boondoggle itself) and to dangle the bait of future seating arrangements to extract still more contributions and concessions from others.

A means, in other words, for Mr. Trump and his chosen people to more-convincingly imitate the persons he obviously idolizes: the nation-owning monarchs and autocrats of the Middle East and elsewhere.

For that reason, I suggest we all just call this construction what it is – The Donald J. Trump Throne Room, at the Trump™ White House™.

On which note, does anyone really believe Mr. Trump will graciously depart what he is busily turning into the Presidential Palace – having finally gotten it redecorated to his taste – just because his current term expires? Having previously experienced the diminution of becoming an ‘ex-’ Chief Executive? Having in this term solidified his dominion over the rabble thanks to a compliant Supreme Court and supine Trumpublican Party? Having for his entire life scooted around every legal and moral constraint and gotten away with it all?

Note that Mr. Trump’s favorite head of state, Vladimir Putin, will have been in power for thirty years when his current term ends. The House of Saud has ruled its Kingdom for over ninety years (and a somewhat smaller realm for generations before that). China’s Xi Jinping is currently enjoying his third five-year term with no end in sight thanks to the 2018 elimination of the prior term limit on that office. Israel’s Netanyahu is over 18 years in control; Turkey’s Erdogan around 23 (Hungary’s Orban a mere 16). True, Napoleon Bonaparte lasted only 15, but Uncle Joe Stalin managed over 50…

On the turgid scale of those role models, a mere eight years in office would hardly rate inclusion. If, indeed, the style of Mr. Trump’s civic works is true indication of his character, we are in for a bumpy January 2029.

P. S. – E Unum Pluribus is a thrilling speculative fiction exploring one way in which a President’s attempt to overstay his welcome might affect our nation’s survival. It is currently being serialized online and you can read it, at no cost, starting at https://robinandrew.net/2026/01/01/e-unum-pluribus/

Stronger Together

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“… you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world…that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” 

Where commentator Leighton Woodhouse rightly sees those words of Trump-whisperer Stephen Miller as a retreat from Christian values*, they also suggest a tragic misread of our nation’s history.

As Ken Burns’ recent documentary, The American Revolution vividly reminds, the story of the USA has never been that of the strongest and most powerful singlehandedly dominating those around them.  Rather, the founding generations were wise enough to see that their thirteen colonies must work together- despite very significant differences around religion, economics, politics and, perhaps most profoundly, the pernicious institution of slavery – in order for any among them to have a hope of breaking free from British tyranny.

Once the colonists united – a unity as messy, tenuous and frustrating as any representative system tends to be – even their combined numbers and resources did not assure success; from its start, the colonial coalition actively sought the support of other nations.  Ultimately, after six long years of brutal fighting, it was direct French participation (along with the indirect assistance of other nations and peoples who further taxed the Britain’s resources by opposing it in other parts of the world), that enabled Washington’s forces to triumph at Yorktown, turning the tide of attrition and so winning our independence. 

Power, strength and force, yes, but born of compromise, cooperation and alliance; that is what allowed a band of ragged upstarts to defeat the British Empire, which was, at that time, the greatest exemplar of Mr. Miller’s professed ‘laws’ of existence.

Similarly, the decades which established America as a superpower were never about the U.S. going it alone, even if we were by some measures the most powerful single nation.  Both World Wars were won by alliances in which we participated, sometimes as leaders sometimes not (Russia’s defeat of Nazi forces on the Eastern Front set the stage for Hitler’s eventual defeat which was, until then, far from a certain outcome).  Nor was the Cold War ‘won’ by unilateral American action; we could not have strained the Soviet economy to the point of failure without the economic cooperation and military participation of our allies in Europe and elsewhere – including Japan and Germany, two one-time conquerors whose defeat in war was accomplished through force but whose rehabilitation and future contributions as allies were made possible by reason, cooperation and patient hard work.

Yes, the qualities Miller cites – strength force and power – play a role in life and international relations.  And yes, there are ruthless players in the world today against whom we must defend our nation and civilization.  But coming from a cadre dedicated to belligerent unilateralism, who have employed military force, willful brutality and a single-minded claim of their own superiority against not only other nations but many of their fellow citizens as well, his proclamation smacks not of wisdom but of hubris.   If he and his ilk won’t take the word of American history for that, let them consider how few of history’s most famous strong, forceful and powerful tyrants – Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Bismark, Napoleon, Alexander, Julius Caeser, et al – established or continued any institution which lasted nearly as long as the 250 years which our more measured nation celebrates this year.

Perhaps a dog-eat-dog America such as Mr. Miller envisions can temporarily proclaim itself a bigger fish by shrinking its pond to just the western hemisphere and consigning the rest of the world to their own fate.  But the USA is and always has been a part of the world and will eventually be affected by the fate of other nations.  If we wish truly to fulfill the promise of its founding, to honor that era’s sacrifices and to deserve the bounties we all continue to enjoy thanks to them, we must relearn the value of building alliances and collaborating with like-minded forces wherever they reside. 

America First has never been America Alone

(And if, as it sometimes seems, Mr. Miller’s and Mr. Trump’s real goal is to forge an alliance between the USA and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, one need only look at the quality of life, rule of law and economic vitality of Russia today to see where that road leads.)

*Donald Trump, Pagan King, by Leighton Woodhouse, New York Times online, 2026-01-11

P.S. – For another vision of how our current politics may play out, try E Unum Pluribus, currently available free of charge to Beta Test readers. Click the box below to access its first installment: 

E Unum Pluribus

I hope you will take a look, and even if you do not, please share this post with anyone who believes the written word can help to bring us together!

Novel Words – fictional pronouns for the actual future.

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John McWhorter published an Opinion piece recently* about the evolution of pronouns, with particular attention to a new character gaining attention among users of the Mandarin language (X也, shown in image above, combines features of the characters for both he and she, rather as some persons do). Along similar lines, a new novel, E Unum Pluribus, speculates a future American city/state called Confluence in which government edict directs all official communications to employ non-gendered pronouns. The novel’s events make clear that Confluence’s government has plenty of faults and weaknesses, but this one of its policies merits some consideration.

For generations the convention in English was to use ‘he/him/his’ as default and inclusive of all, regardless of their sex/gender. Appropriately, that has now been perceived as favoring male identity over female; simultaneously reflecting historic inequality and perpetuating it. Replacing all those instances with ‘he or she,’ ‘his or her,’ etc. is hardly workable, especially in spoken communications, and still carries a hint of misogyny by placing one gender ahead of the other, whereas ‘she/he’ risks offending insecurities on the other side of the identity coin.

Recent efforts to innovate ‘they’ as a singular pronoun for persons who choose to declare themselves non-binary run aground first on its pre-existing function as plural, generating confusion where they intend clarity. That usage also seems to open the door to a trickle of additional new pronouns as various groups or orientations demand similar recognition; one need only read the snarky online critiques of how LGBT has grown to LBGTQIA2S+ to know that is not a path to tolerance so much as a guarantee of further friction. Worst, in this opinion, ‘they’ singular requires persons who prefer not to be stereotyped as either ‘he’ or ‘she’ to state that publicly, thereby outing themselves and very possibly inviting prejudice, at least at this point in our societal evolution.

The fictional founders of Confluence have taken another approach; directing official communications to use ‘e/em/eir’ for all individuals. This treats everyone with equal respect and does not require the clunky ‘my pronouns are…’ , which can itself incite prejudices. The specific form, ‘e,” ‘em,’ and ‘eir’ are brief and efficient, similar enough to other pronouns that they quickly feel familiar but with sufficient difference to avoid confusion**.

By applying equally to all possible personal preferences ‘e’ equalizes all in one swoop while tacitly expressing the truth that for virtually all public or official interactions there is no proper reason to indicate what genitalia an individual bears or with whom they choose to become intimate. Those are – and should remain – irrelevant.

There’s nothing revolutionary here, by the way, modern English already has gender neutral pronouns – ‘they’ does not presume the gender of a group or any of its individuals. ‘It’ can be used for all objects – unlike French, say in which some nouns require feminine constructions and other nouns masculine, despite the objects having no actual sexual function or accoutrements. Most prominently, ‘I’ is the same for any individual regardless of sex, gender or other characteristic. It is really only in the second person singular that our language’s evolution has codified an unfortunate and outdated discrimination.

In the world of E Unum Pluribus, that governmental edict for official communications also does not mean ‘e’ is used by everyone all the time. Non-official conversations use gendered pronouns wherever a subject’s preference has become clear, sticking to gender-neutral when an individual’ presentation is itself gender neutral. As in real life, casual usage and common courtesy have the final word in how language evolves over time.

(For what it’s worth, future posts on this site may selectively incorporate ‘e/em’eir’ pronouns to explore just how functional they are – or are not.)

*“This Novel Word Speaks Volumes About How an Entire Language Works” N. Y. Times online edition, 2026-01-22

** E Unum Pluribus does not claim to have invented the ‘e/em/eir’ construct.  Variations on what are sometimes called ‘Spivak pronouns’ have been noted at least as far back as the late 19th-century.

P. S.: E Unum Pluribus is a tale of murder and conspiracy set a decade or so in our future in one of many small sovereignties sprung up in wake of the USA’s self-destruction. The novel explores multiple themes – language and gender, identity, guilt and even the origins of faith and belief – but speaks loudest in its depiction of how much we all stand to lose if we continue to retreat into factions which each act only for their own needs and interests.

The manuscript is available in six instalments, starting at:

E Unum Pluribus

If you like what you read here or at robinandrew.net, please share any posts as widely as possible – and consider subscribing: it’s totally free!

Room, Emma Donoghue

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Room sets off on a Movie-of-the-Week premise – five-year old Jack has lived his entire life in a single room, victim along with his mom (Ma) of a tabloid kidnapping/imprisonment – and takes it farther, into Ellie Wiesel territory; human-kind’s capacity for adaptation, the saving power of love and the forces shaping one’s perception and world view. In doing so, it goes way beyond genre and expectation, offering insights relevant well-beyond the tiny population who’ve suffered any similar fates. Donoghue’s hand is, for the most part, light, as we sense Ma’s desperate coping mechanisms only thru Jack’s child-centric perceptions.  Donoghue allows us to feel the desperation of their escape attempt (the least believable element, until the Opra-esque TV interview which follows it) and the awkwardness of reunion with others after 7 years in their own little world. The novel’s intent at brevity is evident in some after-escape segments, but all in all that is a blessing, as Jack’s first-person voice can be a bit tiresome.

The final beats reinforce the author’s strongest theme – that for Jack their tiny  room was not a prison, but home, and in some ways a bit of a paradise: Ma all to himself 24/7/365, safe and filled with all he had ever known – and nearly all he ever wanted.  By making it his only world, Ma protected her baby, but at the same time, prevented him from understanding his true fate, and so from growing beyond its four, very limiting, walls

A useful analogy, and a keeper of a tale.

Vexation Lullaby, Justin Tussing

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Wonderful surprise; a rock-n-roll novel that feels true and real while transcending its setting and subject to reveal real thought and humanity, rising beyond the stereotypes and neuroses.

As much as I enjoyed the dissolute rock-star Jimmy Cross – skillfully complexified by Tussing – and the protagonist Peter Silver, it is the exploration of obsessive fan Arthur Pennyman (‘Everyman’?) which jolts this out of genre, as he gains a love interest and a life. Or perhaps it is really the women – Arthur’s Rosslyn, Peter’s Maya and Jimmy’s Judith – who humanize the men and the novel. In any case, it is the relationships and dynamics that surprise and reward here, not the drunken debauchery, which comes across mostly as habit and self-medication rather than joyful or even truly sordid.

A human and humane story set in a milieu not typically known for either, spun out with a sure hand, even down to Pennyman’s obsession with footnoting.

(Footnote – I look forward to checking out ‘The Best People in the World’ Tussing’s earlier novel, which is listed as winner of a Ken Kesey Award)

Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan

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McEwan still has the power to surprise; to anticipate what his reader will be thinking and make hay of it.

All through this I wondered at the reason behind his writing in Serena’s first person and what sort of personal whimsy or predilection might be behind it. That he (she ) wonders if there might be a hint of gender issues in Tom Haley’s writing (and persona) led me to wonder (not for the first time) just the same about McEwan. Then here she comes in the final epistle to toy again with the theme, but now from Tom’s point of view,and at the same time, reveal the he (McEwan) has, all the time, been writing in Tom’s persona as he (Tom) attempts to write from Serena’s point of view! Almost more fun in the diagram than in the execution, still, McEwan’s Serena is mostly credible ( and where not, one can grant that it is just Tom’s failure, not McEwan’s). Interesting and just kinky enough to add spice.

No masterpiece, but a fun spy story with more human insight and value then any but the best of its genre.