Some creative writers believe that stories carry a responsibility. The duty to entertain, of course, but also to educate, challenge and question the character(s) of the most powerful, the wealthiest. I am one of them. As an author, screenwriter, stage, and film actor, Iāve always believed in using stories as a platform to convey positively disruptive ideas, to highlight potentially destructive ideologies, to combat imperialism, expansionism, racism, and other toxic practices while delivering a neutral message devoid of political affiliations and emotional responses with no logical ground. Not unlike my latest novel, America is a Zoo, I am the product of a passionate soul, one whoās apolitical by design, yet political by conviction.
Satires are mostly identified with laughter and larger-than-life figures moving in equally absurd settings with thisā¦ theatrical tone used to amplify, highlight very real issues. But satirical novels also demand change. Chuck Palahniukās novel,Adjustment Day, is both fun and challenging, and expertly executed.
What is it about? A mysterious blue-black book carries directives leading to an āAdjustment Day.ā It is shared among private circles, triggering a countdown to an earth-shattering schism.
Brilliant, layered, and complex, a must-read: a nightmarish vision of our twisted and fractured societal body.
Adjustment Day is an ingenious darkly comic work in which Chuck Palahniuk does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war to control the burgeoning population of young males, while working-class men dream of burying the elites. Adjustment Day's arrival makes real the logical conclusion of every separatist fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy theory lurking in the American psyche.
Iām a historian who loves watching the Founding Fathers do not-so-Founding-Fatherish things, like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson bonding over how awful Alexander Hamilton was, James Madison reporting how the king of Spain liked to relieve himself daily by the same oak tree, and George Washington losing his temper, asking his cousin to look for the teeth he just knew heād left in his desk drawer, or spinning out a conspiracy theory. Itās details like this that reveal that even the most revealed figures were real people, like us but often very different. Figuring out how it all makes sense is a challenge I enjoy.
The men who fought the American Revolution were often young, in their teens and twenties, and the war coincided with their transition to adulthood, interrupting the traditional passage into beginning a career and forming a family. Ruddiman recaptures what it meant for the revolution to happen not just at a particular time in the nationās history but at a particular time in the lives of the men who fought it. For officers, the war was an unmatched opportunity to enhance their social status because it cemented their reputation as gentlemenāespecially when they really werenāt genteel by any other standard. Itās a reminder that status mattered a lot, even in an army fighting against aristocracy.
Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. ""Going for a soldier"" forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers' own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of economic competence and marriage notā¦
