“Gateway to the
Moon,” a novel, and its official publication date is Tuesday, April 10.
The novel opens in
northern New Mexico, where we are introduced to Miguel Torres. Okay, full
disclosure, I love this kid. Five pages with him and you will too. A tour de
force follows.
It’s a weird time
right now. Lots of folks flailing … I wrote this Sunday, April 8, (we are a
family of writers, alas) for a magazine column in the New York Post. It
is a testament to how we are preoccupied with the political, the social, the
chaos ….
“Over at Harper’s, Thomas Frank, of “What’s the Matter with
Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America” notoriety, is waxing
Cassandra-like with a cautionary tale for liberal democrats in the Age of
Trump. The cover fits the tone of his piece perfectly, with a blissfully serene
president floating above warring throngs of graying elites. His beef: folks
upset with Trump, believing that a humanist savior, this time not Hillary
Clinton but Special Counsel Bob Mueller, will rise from the ashes that is the
current political scene and guide the righteous to the promised land of
Democratic Party rule. Sorry, Frank says. If that’s the best the left can do,
rather than fix the message for those poor people still waiting in Kansas
(Frank published that book back in 2004) for an answer to their troubles, then
yep, it’ll be four more years of Trump coming January 2021.”
We need, more than ever, novels like “Gateway to the Moon,”
to restore our faith in great literature, to be in the hands of a master
storyteller, to reorient ourselves, to remind ourselves, what is truly at the
heart of the human soul.
Next: Running for Your Life: Humbled by Humboldt
