Born Under Punches

Er, sorry for another Talking Heads reference. But darn it, it fits.

The following "Note from the Author" is at the end of The Compass Room:

Writing The Compass Room took me into difficult territory. To tell this story honestly, I had to grapple with right-wing politics in Europe—especially the fear of immigration. It was uncomfortable ground for me.

Immigration looks very different in Europe than in America. Europe lies much closer to unstable regions of the world, and waves of migration can feel like sudden shocks. At the same time, European leaders seem unwilling to slow immigration because of demographic realities—an aging population and the economic need for workers. That tension is part of what fuels unrest in the novel.

I pulled my punches. But I think my readers are savvy enough to understand what I was getting at. I had to do my homework, and one of the writers I tackled was Douglas Murray. I also had to catch up on events like the so-called 'grooming gangs' scandal in the UK, and the sexual assaults on German women on New Year's Eve 2015 in Cologne. Not to mention the countless Islamist terrorist attacks across Europe over the past two decades. So, if you didn't understand what wasn't stated in The Compass Room, you do now.

As I prepare the next, and perhaps final, installment of The Wartmann Series, I need to tackle this head on.

I'm not sure I can. That final line in The Compass Room, "I can see the future, kid. We're not ready," by Daddy Longlegs, was deeper—and darker—than you know. This is godawful serious stuff, and I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

Here's why: I can't be sure how correct it is. I am not a fan of ideology. They bind you and they blind you. Yes, large-scale immigration in a short period of time can be very disruptive and divisive. Dystopian visions of a European Caliphate, though, if one doesn't act now? Like forced expulsions or evoking the rhetoric of civil war?

Nope. Not going there. I think (hope) that this period of instability will pass, and maybe sooner rather than later. I am evoking George Friedman's The Storm Before the Calm and Fareed Zakaria's Age of Revolutions here.

In The Compass Room, I was able to lay out these difficult societal challenges in Europe through humor and levity. That was a revelation to me. I hope I can pull it off a second time.

I think these issues will fade in prominence and urgency as others come to the fore. The world is in constant flux, and that is not a new phenomenon. This is the crux of the motif at the heart of The Walmsley Dome, the follow-up to The Compass Room.

Because once the view expands to the scale I'm writing toward, our familiar power struggles—Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, even Washington—fade against forces looming just beyond the edge of the map.