Tenure 2: Cancel Culture is Canceled — and It’s a Blast
In Tenure 2, the chronicles of Braxton Knox continue. And, like I had written about the first book of the series: what a ride!
To recap, Tenure – and now, the series – is a revenge fantasy. It is Death Wish in the Age of Wokeness. Braxton Knox, a not-yet-tenured university professor of history, was fired and cancelled in Book One after a female student accused him of bigotry and homophobia after he had used the wrong pronoun. He had innocuously called her "Miss" – and whoa, Nellie, was that a mistake.
Years before he was a university professor, Knox was a young soldier in the Army and served in Afghanistan. His job in the Army? Typing reports. His only "combat" was when insurgents attacked his base, firing small arms into the compound while Knox was on the toilet. A bullet had come through the door, barely missing him.
A whole series of bad events followed his "misgendering" of the student: He was fired, and Antifa targeted him to make an example out of him. They ran his wife off the road, and she was killed. He was "doxed," and trigger-happy FBI agents raided his home and shot and killed his daughter.
Brandon Knox is a Woke-era Paul Kersey, the architect hapless-victim-turned-vigilante in the 1970s and '80s movie series Death Wish portrayed by actor Charles Bronson.(Bruce Willis recast Kersey as a doctor in the 2018 reboot).
In Tenure, Knox hunts down the Antifa killers one by one – but he doesn't stop there. He targets pretty much everyone who played even a small role in the chain of events that killed his wife and daughter.
What really roped me into Tenure was the humor. I had written that the villains were caricatures and I looked forward to their demise at the hands of Knox. "Caricature" probably wasn't the best word to use, but they were hilarious in their adherence to far-left ideology. Their actions were humorously fun and over-the-top and reminiscent of the fun Nobody series starring Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk.
I wrote that, like Death Wish and Nobody, Tenure was primed for a long-running series and that I hoped that the authors, Blaine Pardoe and Mike Baron, would really lean into the humor for Book Two.
Well … I am happy to report that that is exactly what they did.
Think Elmer Leonard (Get Shorty). In fact, if anything, I can imagine the Coen brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading) sinking their teeth into Tenure 2. The baddies – it all begins with Percy, a portly 30+ year-old online social justice warrior still living with his mother leading an online mob to cancel a mom-and-pop Christian baker who refused to make chocolate cookies in the shape of penises with … well, let's not get too descriptive. Suffice it to say that the baker refused a gay couple's request, and Percy and his online connections went to town canceling and dismantling the baker's (and others) life in the name of social justice.
Braxton Knox, fresh off his own travails, saw the news story and took it upon himself to serve up justice in support of the baker. Knox has become a new kind of superhero. I am reminded of M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable – but instead of a superpower, Knox is a regular guy who relies on moxie, planning, and the support of a small group of friends and a mysterious sponsor. His enemies come to think that he is some kind of mystery man with a shadowy special forces background. But no.
Percy and his side – his veteran uncle and his shady friends and connections, and Percy's small network of online social justice "warriors" – engage in a comedy of errors that the Coen brothers would very much appreciate.
I certainly appreciate Tenure 2. I can't wait to start Tenure 3. And the way authors Pardoe and Baron are going, this series can go on for a long time.
Five stars.
Mark James is the Kirkus-starred author of geopolitical thrillers Friendship Games and The Compass Room. He has taught political and economic geography for over twenty years.