My book club consists of family, friends (including my pastor friend), family of friends, and friends of friends. We have been going strong for close to six years (which in book club years is close to four decades), and, while our ranks have seen a little fluctuation, for the most part, we are a stable group of readers. I use the term "stable" in the physical sense, not the mental sense.
At 7 p.m. on March 25, our little band of literati met to discuss this month's reading selection, The Anarchist, a novel about the assassination of William McKinley. If you are interested, I give the book four stars. It was written by John Smolens, a colleague of mine at the college where I teach, and, brave soul that he is, he consented to come to our meeting to answer our questions, put up with our dysfunction, and down some Killian's. This isn't the first time that John has visited our group. In fact, this is the third novel of his that we've read, and consequently his third time in the hot seat. Either John is really hard-up for something to fill his Thursday night, or he really enjoys being with us. I prefer to believe the latter as opposed to the former.
Much of the conversation with John concerned his research for the novel, which included trips to Chicago and Buffalo to read and pore over newspapers from 1901, the year President McKinley was shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. As presidential assassinations go, it's a story not too many people know the details about. I vaguely recalled that McKinley was shot greeting the public in a large hall. McKinley's murder does not have the historical weight of Abraham Lincoln's or the immediacy of JFK's. In fact, most people barely remember the names of the two other assassinated presidents of the United States. (If you're wondering, they're William McKinley and James Garfield. Garfield, I believe, was shot in a train station, but that's the extent of my knowledge.)
When I commented to John how few people really know the details surrounding McKinley's death, or what a hugely popular president he was, John smiled, sipped his Killian's, and said, "I was kind of counting on that."
As a writer, I can vouch for the fact that writing an interesting poem, story, novella, or novel about a subject as familiar as JFK's assassination would be as difficult as getting a clear shot from the grassy knoll. However, writing something interesting about William McKinley's fatal shooting at the Pan-American Exposition is an easier endeavor (not the writing, which is hard work no matter what the subject, but the creation of something fresh and unique). John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, these are names everybody knows. Leon Czolgosz, on the other hand, is a name that conjures no immediate associations. Drop Leon's name at a party that's not a book club gathering about The Anarchist and see if it starts any interesting conversations. (I once went to an online chat room where people were debating who would win the Nobel Prize in Literature that year. I typed something like, "I think it's going to be a poet from the United States named Martin Achatz." The resounding virtual silence was deafening. Leon's name would have the same effect in a crowd not consisting of history geeks and conspiracy theorists.)
Stories that have been told over and over lose their power, become ordinary and expected, even stories containing angels and virgins and people rising from the dead. Familiarity breeds boredom and apathy. March 25 is the celebration of the Annunciation, which, for my non-Catholic friends, is the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary telling her that she is going to be the mother of God. Basically, it's the commemoration of the conception of Jesus. Nine months from this date, we will be opening Christmas presents. It's a story every person, Christians and non-Christians, has heard over and over again. It has lost its luster and power, which is an amazing statement to make. Even I have to admit that i would rather discuss a novel about a presidential murder than sit down with a Bible and go over the narrative of the birth of Christ again.
I always struggle with this at Christmas and Easter. Sometimes it feels like I'm just putting in the DVD for Oliver Stone's JFK and watching it for the tenth time. Say it with me: "Back and to the left. Back and to the left." That film can still evoke an emotional response in me, but it's a response I expect and am prepared for. Every once in a while, I get shaken out of my complacency when it comes to the Christ narrative, usually by some artistic work. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ knocked me on my ass when it first came out. Reading a Flannery O'Connor short story does this for me occasionally, as well.
Writing this blog has made a difference for me this Lent. I have been much more aware of my spiritual and personal and emotional life for the past 40 or so days. Being so brutally honest with myself in front of my one or two readers has been like watching the Zapruder film frame-by-frame for blood spatter evidence. Not a completely pleasant experience, but one that has invested my Easter journey with deeper meaning.
I think that's one of the jobs of believers--to reinvent the story, to find the Leon Czolgosz that makes you view history in a totally different way. If you can't do that, then faith really becomes a matter of rereading a good book for the umpteenth time, hoping that the ending has changed. For the record: President McKinley dies in The Anarchist, and Jesus rises from the grave on Easter morning. The trick is writing an ending for yourself that makes a difference.
I'm still working on my last chapter this Easter.
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