https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/27/opinion/jd-vance-cat-ladies.html
I need my fiction to stay ahead of reality. This “parents > childless” underlies the tenet in my books of “get and keep women pregnant at any cost.” Childlessness is supposed to be the precursor to pregnancy, as women’s reproduction volition ends only when menopause has run its course.
The coming four years might just exceed my most dystopian fiction.
In A Day at the Zoo, the murder occurs at the Cameron Zoo in Waco.
Apologies to “The Princess Bride,” but, were it not deadly serious, moving IVF containers from one state to another because of Alabama’s ruling that embryos are people.
How would these scraps of cells be seen as they move from Red States to Blue ones? Kidnapping? Whose names should we put on milk cartons?
What we’re seeing is a fast trot to the work of Shmuley Myers, where women need to find ways to escape their own state in order to control their bodies.
In other news, book #4 is well underway and the publishing date is set for sometime in December. It will have new…points of view compared to the first three books in the series.
The debacle that was the 2024 election in the United States, which is now devolving into a garbage fire on considerable proportions, is an example of an inflection point in history.
For the Shmuley Myers universe, that was when Ralph Reed’s Moral Majority managed, in a lightning swoop, to pass the ill-fated constitutional amendment stating not only that life begins at conception, but also that citizenship is awarded at that time. Turning every non-live birth into a murder investigation, and triggering the kinds of anti-birth control, pro-taming and -controlling of women that even Margaret Atwood’s writings and the fantasies of religious extremists in the Philipines could not match.
I hope the American people veer from the absurdist Calvinist principles that have brought us to this precipice and embrace the idea that a plurality of views, religions, and mores beats the monolith of the fascism of the “majority” (or rich).
September 6-8 are the dates for this awesome convention featuring slews of writers, their fans, and those interested in the business and practice of writing. Events include:
For all details head out to https://armadillocon.org/d46/. And check out ongoing updates at their blog.
The last eight months have been a slow-motion horror show for me. Between the horrifying massacre of Israelis in October and the brutal war that still follows, to watching the Israeli government slide toward totalitarianism and fascism — not to be outdone by the insanity that is the American 2024 election cycle — I’m left raw and empty. July 4th for me, this year, reminds me how far the country has slid from the idea of a United America that is celebrated “just like every year.”
The Shmuley Myers series is about murder: whodunnit, whydunnit, and all that. Seeing the hatred and violence playing out on the two stages I care about wears me down. Who wants to swim in the bloody seas of a murder investigation on top of all that reality?
I know Ukrainian authors who stopped writing some of their books because they were dark even before the Russian invasion. I didn’t understand it at the time, but, unfortunately, I do now.
The fourth book, A Measure of Mercy, touches on that quality. Yes, it’s a murder mystery, but not the glory of gory that can be part and parcel of that genre. There’s more loving and understanding enmeshed with the sadness brought on by violence smashing into a family.
I’ve picked up the (virtual) pen again, hoping I can inject, at least myself, with some recognition that Rachamim–mercy, not pity–will be my anodyne for the coming months.
A third state has another tie to bind a woman to a pregnancy (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/15/missouri-law-divorce-pregnancy-violence-abortion). Pregnant in Missouri and want a divorce? Nope, not until the baby is born. I mean, whose body is this, anyway? Keep in mind not all religions have the same laws regarding abortion. But freedom in the US is supposed to be unfettered by religion–it says so in the constitution. Actually, this law violates the 14th Amendment that ended slavery. Because a person disempowered from movement or freedom from violence is, indeed, enslaved.
An Ohio woman who miscarried a non-viable fetus stands charged of corpse abuse–of the fetus (see story: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/us/brittany-watts-miscarriage-criminal-charge/index.html). This is added to the increasingly blatant tricks used in states like Texas to ensure all pregnancies result in births, no matter the consequence to the fetus or mother.
The Shmuley Myers mysteries deal with the “law of the land” in this increasingly NOT an alternative history. To those not agreeing with what is not even Christian doctrine but instead a fringe desire to control women, the law is out to get you.
I’ve been asked about other murder mystery series. Most people know about the Rabbi David Small series by Harry Kemelman. I never connected to it, any more than I found Agatha Christie’s mysteries. My connection to the Jewish detective concept was actually due to Michael Chabon‘s brilliant “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union”, an alternate history tale set in Alaska. I found it more vibrant and police procedural than the dilettante detective concept.
One of my readers casually asked me recently if I’d read anything from Will Thomas. (No, I hadn’t.) I picked up the first book in his Barker & Llewelyn series, “Some Danger Involved,” and was immediately entranced. Thomas’ meticulous descriptions of Jewish customs and traditions set in and adapted for the 19th century. Sheer brilliance. If you like the Shmuley Myers series, Thomas’ dispassionate storytelling is compelling and now I have to spend more precious time plowing through the series.
The fourth novel in the Shmuley Myers series is being written, slowly. Name announcement and teaser to be revealed… anon.
In the opening scene of The Property of Blood there’s a scene at a primitivist Christian megachurch. Read the book to get details, but readers have commented about the different ways in which blood has been sacred. Here’s something from the NY Times that surprised me. It’s about Mrs. Vuolo, once a member of the overexposed Duggar family and its rather special brand of Christian belief. Full article here. ‘…As the credits rolled, the children performed a song onstage about the saving blood of Jesus, warbling, “Why should I not be put in hell to suffer for all time?”’
I’m always puzzled when these visions of violence are matched to the worship of someone seen as “representing “The Prince of Peace.”
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving. Be safe.
