Saturday, 4 July

To say that I have complicated feelings about the Fourth of July this year would be an astronomical understatement. 

When I first started writing Strangers' Gate two years ago, Joe Biden was president and had yet to drop out of the presidential race to endorse Kamala Harris as his successor. My intention at that point was to write a breezy, slightly outrageous potboiler set in a future version of America that would make Sean Hannity wail with despair. A welcoming, multi-cultural and pluralistic America that — while far less globally dominant than it once was — has moved a good deal closer to the Jeffersonian ideal of "equal rights for all, special privileges for none." (And yes, I fully acknowledge the irony inherent in quoting the idealistic musings of a slaveholder who fathered multiple children with a young girl under his control, beginning when she was only 16 years old.)

And then, right as I hit the midpoint of the book, the 2024 U.S. election happened, and everything changed — sort of. The funny thing is that the plot and overall world-building details of the novel didn't change at all — it was always going to end the way it does, and I didn't feel the need to introduce new characters or major plot points to address the ongoing embarrassments of the U.S. government.

But at the same time, what had started as a lighthearted fantasy about what the most progressive, tolerant version of America might look like now took a decidedly darker turn. No longer was I creating an amusingly exaggerated version of modern America, guided by Martin Luther King's famous formulation that the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends toward justice. Instead, I was constructing a vision of the United States that seemed so fantastical and unobtainable that it might as well have been an alternate reality.

And yet, as the writing progressed, I realized that the subject matter and overall tone of the book, far from being diminished by America's rightward lurch, had become (for me) a soothing balm and aspirational template for a country that could yet be willed into existence, despite (or perhaps because of) the current dismal state of American affairs. It was never lost on me that my teenage son will be right around my current age during the events of the novel, and that fact guided me every day as I tried to envision what the best possible (but still vaguely realistic) version of America might look like.

And so happy 4th of July to you, my wonderful backers, as we all strive mightily to create a more perfect union. As I say to my son in the book's dedication, "with love and fervent hope for the better future that you will help create."

Thanks for reading,

Eric Blair