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Opening scene - introduces protagonist and secondary character, sets tone, foreshadows primary conflict, core setting “Let’s get this over with,” Maggie Caldwell said under her breath as she smoothed her pink silk shirt and sat down beside Pete on her living room sofa for an interview with Joyce Evans from Good Evening America. “Your job is to show Pete’s softer side,” the lead consultant from Re:Imagine, the brand reputation agency they had hired for the apology tour, told her. “We need America to see Pete as a family man, with a beautiful wife and two perfect children. You are warm, you are forgiving, and you are supportive.” Maggie mustered a smile at the “beautiful wife” part. She took wins where she could get them these days. Their six bedroom Victorian house—the dream house they had purchased and renovated the year before—had turned into a war room. Their long oak dining table was peppered with laptops, and PR people wearing earbuds paced around the house shouting about “exclusives” and “impressions” and “influencer strategies.” That morning, Maggie had suffered through four hours of media training, during which a team of lawyers and publicists told her exactly what to say and how to say it (“Too cheerful. Too serious. Too confident. Not confident enough. Smile!”). They dressed her, slathered her face in makeup, glued fake lashes to her eyelids one by one using tiny tweezers, and directed her every move. “You should be touching Pete the whole time,” a baby-faced image consultant named Chaz told her. Of course his name is Chaz. “Hand on his leg, arms brushing, just some kind of physical contact at all times. When they ask a tough question and Pete starts to answer, reach for his hand. Not in a ‘You need my help with this’ kind of way, and definitely not in a ‘Don’t say that’ kind of way, but more in a ‘You’re doing great and I’ll love you forever’ kind of way. Make sense?” Maggie would almost certainly love Pete forever, but it was hard to forgive this misstep. She had sacrificed a lot, including her own career as a journalist, in order to make his dream of playing for the National Baseball League come true. Now, only two years later, it was all slipping away because of a stupid mistake. The Atlanta Daily Paper article was still spread out on the kitchen counter. She had memorized the front page: A large photo of Pete smiling up at the stadium lights right after he hit a record-breaking home run, accompanied by the headline “NBL’S GOLDEN BOY PETE CALDWELL PERMANENTLY BANNED FOR STEROIDS.” The story was so long it continued on two more pages. This was the first crackdown since the NBL had enacted its new zero-tolerance doping policy, and it was clear the commissioner of baseball intended to make an example out of Pete and the Atlanta Hammers. According to the Caldwell family’s official statement, it wasn’t steroids Pete had taken, but “supplements designed to improve muscle recovery.” Maggie hadn’t even asked him for the whole story—she had her suspicions and didn’t want them confirmed. Besides, he would broach the subject if he really wanted her to know.

IN DECEMBER 1983, WHEN THE COCAINE era was in full ascent, the movie Scarface was released in theaters around the United States. At the time, the organization of Falcon and Magluta was annually bringing in roughly $100 million. To celebrate their success, the core members of the organization, along with their wives and girlfriends, every year traveled from Miami to Las Vegas for a week of gambling, floor shows, and a massive New Year’s Eve party at Caesers Palace Hotel and Casino. One afternoon in late December, Falcon and eight members of his group went to see Scarface. The making of the movie had touched off a controversy in their hometown of Miami, where it was felt that the depiction of Cuban exiles as narcos was slanderous. Willy Falcon, following the lead of more formal exile organizations like the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), forbid any of his gang from taking part in the production. Consequently, the movie was shot primarily in Los Angeles, using that city as a stand-in for Miami. That afternoon in the Las Vegas movie theater, Falcon and his group found Scarface to be highly entertaining. They hooted and hollered during the outlandish depictions of cocaine violence and mayhem. They laughed at Al Pacino’s thick Marielito accent. The movie was so cartoonish in its attempts to dramatize the cocaine business—but with enough verisimilitude that the Boys were able to identify with it—that they were even flattered. They didn’t take it seriously. They thought it was a joke. But they could see that their lives were being elevated into the zeitgeist, and the movie offered the possibility of a kind of cinematic immortality. Later came Miami Vice, another popular depiction of the city’s narco universe. Produced by the NBC network, the show debuted in 1984 and ran for five seasons. Along with the crime stories revolving around the cocaine underworld, the show was highly attuned to surface pleasures of Miami: the pastel colors, Armani suits, sleek powerboats that were right out of the Willy and Sal story, and popular rock, R&B, and Latin music. Miami Vice defined cool in the 1980s and suggested that it was all an extension of the city’s illicit cocaine universe. Part of what made these works of popular entertainment so influential was that they appeared to be straight from the headlines. Movies depicting Prohibition had been popular, but they came years and even decades after the era they were depicting. Scarface and Miami Vice portrayed a phenomenon in real time, as it was happening, making those who were caught up in it feel as though they were living a dream. In the decades that followed came many more movies and television dramas that used the cocaine universe for their storylines. Many took their cues from Scarface. Colombian, Cuban, and later Mexican narcos were invariably depicted as sociopaths or flat-out psychopaths in a business that politicians and people in law enforcement characterized as “evil.” If there was to be a presentation of the cocaine business in entertainment or even in real life—through reports on the television news—it was invariably steeped in violence. “Say hello to my little friend,” Tony Montana’s business motto in Scarface, was a prelude to violent mythmaking, and that seemed to be the way the American public was primed to receive any and all stories related to the cocaine business. As is usually the case, the reality was more complicated. For most of its existence, Willy Falcon and Los Muchachos’ operations in the cocaine world involved little violence. The Boys did not seek to eliminate rivals through murder and intimidation. They did not punish their members internally with torture or killing or even the threat of killing. They did not pull out chain saws, à la Scarface. They did not mow down hordes of partygoers with Uzi submachine guns. It was true that the world in which they were operating was a violent one. The narcosphere, as it was sometimes called, involved violence from top to bottom. Lowly street dealers used violence, and so did Pablo Escobar, believed in the 1980s to be the Godfather of the business. And yet, the example of Los Muchachos suggests that it was possible to succeed at a high level without a reputation for murder—especially if your forte was importation and distribution, not dog-eat-dog entrepreneurship at the retail level. (1) The story of Los Muchachos shows that it was not violence that was the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption. Dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians feeding off the profits of the narcosphere is what made the world go round. This existed at every level of the business, in every country, state, and city where kilos of coke passed through grubby hands on its way to and up the nostrils of the consumer. Falcon and Magluta played this game. With what seemed like unlimited resources, they bought off representatives of the system, from a county sheriff who made it possible for them to land their product at a clandestine airstrip, to a high-level money launderer who became the president of a country. Corruption represents a human failing. It is usually practiced by people who, out of need, convenience, or necessity, choose to violate the principles by which they claim to live their life. When it comes to corruption, greed is the most obvious culprit, stemming from a celebration of wealth, avarice, and the accumulation of more and more and more. Sometimes a person takes illegal payoffs to pay for a friend’s or relative’s medical costs, to deal with a family crisis, to put a kid through college. Whatever the reason, corruption as a shortcut to the American dream became an operating principle that would turn the cocaine business of the 1980s into the most lucrative illegal endeavor on the planet. THE NARCOSPHERE IS NOT A physical place; it is a realm of operation, and a state of mind. It spans sovereign boundaries, physical space, borders, and political jurisdictions. Bolivia and Peru, where the coca plant is grown and cultivated, are parts of the narcosphere, as is Colombia, where the plant is processed into cocaine hydrocholoride. For a long time, Panama City served as the central money-laundering domain of the narcosphere. The Caribbean islands, and later Mexico—which would become the preeminent region of transshipment—have been and are corridors of the narcosphere. The United States of America, the primary marketplace for the product, with more users of cocaine than anywhere else in the world, is arguably the engine that runs the entire operation. Regional players—narcos, cokeheads, drug mules, people in law enforcement, judges, politicians, distributers, dealers, citizens who look the other way—are all participants in this field of illegal commerce that still thrives in the present day. For more than a decade, Falcon and his partners not only operated within this world but also succeeded at it to a degree that was unprecedented. In the years since this story was in the headlines, some would rather minimize and diminish its significance to the point where one of the prosecutors of Willy and Sal, in an interview for this book, made the statement, “Falcon and Magluta were probably the most successful and biggest drug dealers in South Florida, but they weren’t into importing drugs. They were receiving the drugs from smuggling gangs, and then they would distribute it, but they weren’t im- porting.” This is a breathtakingly erroneous statement from someone who prosecuted Los Muchachos. As you will see from reading this book, Willy and Sal brokered major importation deals from around the narcosphere. In lore and legend, they have been portrayed as Cuban American playboys, high school dropouts, and amateurs who stumbled onto a hot property and exploited its popularity throughout the Dionysian era of the 1980s. There is much more to this story than has been previously known. Partly, this is because Falcon and his closest associates have never talked about or been interviewed on the subject—until now. Back in the day, when they were facing prosecution, it was not in their interest to talk openly and honestly for the record. But the passage of time has a way of rearranging priorities. Most of these people have paid their debt to society, in many cases with long prison sentences. Over the decades, Falcon and his former partners have read accounts in the press or online, or seen documentaries on television and the internet, that present a dubious version of their personal histories. Falcon, for one, has waited a long time to give his version of what happened. His willingness to do so opened the door for many others from Los Muchachos to come forward and cooperate with the writing of this book. They represent a generation of people—mostly Cuban-born or Cuban American—who got caught up in this wild era, have paid the price, and now live with the memories of their involvement in the golden age of cocaine. It is time that this story be told from the point of view of those who lived it. Certainly, from a historical perspective, these events are significant to an understanding of the American process during a time of unprecedented crime and mayhem. But it is also important to understand that many lives, on both sides of the law, became enmeshed in the events of this time, and that their experiences—which became fodder for criminal indictments and media accounts—deserve to be recounted, preserved and acknowledged on a human level. History is not simply a cavalcade of big events—wars, elections, or public policies that shape the flow of human endeavor. It is also a consequence of simple people making choices—good, bad, or indifferent—that lead them on a life-altering journey, a singular adventure that maybe shapes the times in which they live. In the case of those who composed Los Muchachos, the passage of time has shed new light on troubling personal events, unearthed deeply buried emotions, rattled the cages of ghosts, and flung open the doors of repressed recollections from long ago. ___________________________________ From the book THE LAST KILO: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire that Seduced America by T.J. English. = Copyright © 2024 by T.J. English. To be published on December 3, 2024 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. (1) After Falcon, Magluta, and eight others from their group were indicted in 1991, there were killings. There were four murders and two attempted murders of potential witnesses against Los Muchachos. It was widely speculated that these killings were related to the case of Los Muchachos, but there was never any evidence linking Falcon to any of these murders, and he was never charged. Magluta was later charged and found not guilty on all murder counts. View the full article

Peyton Collard, the protagonist in my new novel Deadbeat, is proving to be a character readers hate to love. A down-on-his-luck assassin who winds up investigating the very murders he’s committed, Peyton is the latest in a long line of simultaneously compelling and repulsive antiheroes. Is our fascination with antiheroes a consequence of living in a world of increasing complexity, where the line between good and bad is increasingly seen as a question of perspective? Or have we always loved deeply flawed protagonists? Antiheroes challenge our traditional notions of heroism, and their morally ambiguous or outright villainous perspectives compel readers to see the world through a corrupted lens. Are we fascinated by the distortion? Do we secretly yearn to be free of the morality that constrains our decisions? Or do we engage with these characters because their hopelessness makes the prospect of redemption even more dramatic? Let’s take a closer look at some of the most popular literary antiheroes to see why they fascinate us so. TYLER DURDEN – FIGHT CLUB BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK Tyler Durden is charismatic, anarchistic, and ruthlessly destructive. His philosophy of dismantling consumerist culture appeals to a visceral yearning for freedom, one that has arguably all but been destroyed by the victory of capitalist consumerism over all competing ideologies, but his methods—cult-like manipulation and terrorism—are repugnant. It is natural to recoil from his violence, but his philosophy provokes admiration and is still lionised by certain online communities. The final judgment on Tyler as a protagonist is perhaps best delivered within the book itself as a twist that both shocks the reader and leaves them with a sense of loss. PATRICK BATEMAN – AMERICAN PSYCHO BY BRET EASTON ELLIS Any parent who has been exposed to the ‘Sigma mindset’ will be familiar with Christian Bale’s performance as Patrick Bateman. The character has become a popular shorthand for ruthless success and memes of Bale’s Bateman are widely shared among children and teenagers who have no real idea who he is. Bateman was the shallow, bloodthirsty investment banker whose successful persona hides a psychopathic killer. The embodiment of capitalist excess, he is materialistic, narcissistic, and devoid of empathy. His violent acts are revolting, yet Ellis’s dark humor and Bateman’s self-awareness make him a compelling character, and we’re left wondering whether we despise him or the society that spawned him. AMY DUNNE – GONE GIRL BY GILLIAN FLYNN Amy Dunne is a master manipulator, whose meticulous planning and sociopathic tendencies make her chillingly unlikable. However, Amy’s sharp intelligence and her journey offer incisive commentary on the societal pressures on women. Her single-minded pursuit of her objectives forces readers to appreciate her brilliance even as they recoil from her actions. HEATHCLIFF – WUTHERING HEIGHTS BY EMILY BRONTË When Wuthering Heights was first published, critics said the characters were rude and repulsive. There can be little doubt they were refering to Heathcliff, a brooding, vengeful figure, who dominates the book. Some readers view him as the embodiment of dark romance, but he’s actually motivated by revenge and is terribly cruel to his wife, his tenants, and even his own children. Yet somehow Brontë manages to imbue Heathcliff with a tortured vulnerability, painting him as a victim of class prejudice and unrequited love, and in doing so has created a character that has seemed more relevant and accessible with the passage of time. Heathcliff’s anguish over Catherine’s death evokes a reluctant sympathy, compelling readers to some begrudging understanding of his tragic complexity. SEVERUS SNAPE – HARRY POTTER SERIES BY J.K. ROWLING Initially portrayed as a cruel and spiteful antagonist, Snape’s character arc reveals a depth of sacrifice and love that redefines him as one of the most compelling antiheroes in modern literature. His bullying of students and obsession with Lily Potter make him unlikable, but his true motives and the secrets he carries in his heart make it impossible not to like and admire him. The lengths he will go to for love bring a tear to even the stoniest of eyes. TOM RIPLEY – THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY BY PATRICIA HIGHSMITH If Severus Snape is arguably a secret hero rather than an antihero, then Tom Ripley is simply a villain who has earned antihero status simply by being the protagonist. He starts out as a poor, ambitious young man desperate for a better life, but his envy, insecurity and avarice propel him to a series of manipulative and murderous acts. Ripley is a chameleon-like character, and Highsmith imbues him with charm, but I don’t think readers ever truly like him or root for him in the way they might for Tyler Durden, and perhaps it is the selfishness of Ripley’s ambition that makes him a less sympathetic character. LISBETH SALANDER – THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO BY STIEG LARSSON Antihero or plain hero? Lisbeth Salander is a fiercely intelligent, ruthlessly effective vigilante who operates outside the bounds of law and morality. Sounds a lot like Batman, who ranks not only as a hero, but as a superhero. Perhaps Batman’s sense of morality and the lines he won’t cross keep him firmly in the hero category, while Lisbeth’s pursuit of justice against those who abuse others, often through violent means, leads her to cross the antihero line. But she’s not a villain in the way one might perceive Tom Ripely because while her methods might be brutal, her motivations stem from a deep sense of right and wrong. JAY GATSBY – THE GREAT GATSBY BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Jay Gatsby is what happens when the American Dream becomes a nightmare. His charm, wealth, and pursuit of Daisy Buchanan are engaging, but his life is empty, devoted to nothing but wealth and pleasure at all costs, and in order to sustain such a vaccuous existence, he engages in morally questionable acts, from bootlegging to lying, manipulation and outright criminality. He longs to recreate a past that perhaps never existed and is reaching for an ideal while squandering the chance to live a more fulfiling life in the real world. He is a waste, but a memorable one that has engaged readers for decades. MICHAEL CORLEONE – THE GODFATHER BY MARIO PUZO Michael Corleone starts out as a hero, and it is perhaps this initial introduction that keeps the reader rooting for him even as he degenerates into a murderer who is up to his eyeballs in blood and criminality. He retains an idealistic belief that ‘just one more year’ in the family business will give him what he needs to build a legitimate empire, but like a drug addict who lacks self-awareness, Michael can’t say no to power. He sacrifices everything, his morals, his family, and ultimately his humanity for that power. His descent is a masterful portrayal of the destructive power of self-sabotage and how greed and ambition can destroy us from within. AMANDA PHARRELL – CRIMSON LAKE SERIES BY CANDICE FOX Amanda is an enigmatic and unconventional private investigator who was convicted of a terrible crime as a teenager and has spent her adult life trying to reconcile her dark past with her pursuit of truth and justice. Her eccentric habits mask the deep scars left by her time in prison and the moral judgment of others, which continues to haunt her. Amanda operates on the edges of the law and her willingness to confront danger and use morally ambiguous means to navigate dangerous situations makes her a memorable and compelling character who doesn’t quite fit the traditional mould of heroism in crime fiction. Some antiheroes engage us more than others, and it seems the most successful of them share a pursuit of some greater good, however misguided, something that spurs them beyond a selfish objective. They also exhibit a vulnerability or some other human qualities that help us relate to them no matter how heinous their actions. *** View the full article

When I meet someone new at a party, What do you do? usually floats into the conversation at some point. The question is, on its face, eminently open to interpretation; the responses, however, on the part of both myself and my conversation partner, invariably relate to work. (Maybe I just go to the wrong types of parties.) In part, it’s the sheer amount of time we spend at our jobs. Assuming a 40-hour workweek as a baseline, work is what we do more frequently than pretty much any other activity, including potentially sleep. How much we work is in turn a function of various factors. For some, it’s out of economic necessity, which opens up a whole other discussion about wages and the cost of living and how labour should be valued. For others, it’s due to social expectations and norms around the role of work in our lives. Often, our job is more than a paycheck. It can give us a sense of purpose, structure to our days, some measure of satisfaction. It forms an important part of how we think of ourselves, as an engineer or a doctor or an urban planner—and thus here we are at parties, talking about our jobs. My novel The Rivals is about a company that helps perennially online New Yorkers figure out if the people they swipe right on are telling the truth—in newest joiner Claudia Lin’s view, an online-dating detective agency, even if no one else who works there uses any of those words. (Her former boss once told her to think of Veracity as a personal investments advisory firm.) Veracity also monitors the powerful dating platforms that their clients rely on to find love, which have proven ready to resort to deception—and worse—in their bid for the ultimate prize in the matching industry: the ability to predict compatibility. While I didn’t set out to write a workplace novel, The Rivals turned out to be a story that is very much about work. (Neither did I set out to write a mystery novel, which is a separate topic.) Claudia and her co-workers, Becks and Squirrel, compile diligence reports and undertake observations of their targets, as they refer to the people they are hired to verify. They infiltrate the matchmaker which they suspect of misusing its subscribers’ personal data for nefarious purposes, and also of murdering someone who unwittingly uncovered that secret. They argue over verifying methods and strategies for dealing with the matchmakers. Even when Claudia isn’t at work, she’s thinking about it: what the relationship between a client and the woman he’s dating is really like, if she can trust her informant, how she can find out more about the matchmakers’ plans. In one sense, that’s simply reflective of real life and how much time we spend working. But the centering of work in the narrative is also a fundamental trait of detective fiction. At its inquisitive, industrious heart, the detective novel celebrates work—in all the ways that have come under scrutiny today. Saying that COVID disrupted our work status quo might be like saying that people have been known to dress up for Halloween. It put one set of people out of work, required another set of people to continue working despite elevated health risks to themselves and their families, and erased work/non-work boundaries for a third set of people. It also, as global pandemics tend to, created conditions conducive for existential contemplation. Out of that came the Great Resignation, China’s tang ping movement and its corollary of quiet-quitting in the States, mainstream awareness of what the acronym FIRE stands for, and a slew of books and articles questioning the primacy of work in our lives and our identities. In the world of the fictional detective, meanwhile, work is everything. A crime, typically a murder, is committed, and the detective has to solve it. That’s the whole point of the story: to show how someone who’s good at their job carries out a difficult assignment. The stakes are legitimately high—in contrast to many projects in our own non-fictional workplaces, regardless of what the boss or the client might say. Further danger must be averted, any injustice redressed, victims’ loved ones provided with some measure of solace, social order restored. Perhaps that’s why the detectives we read about don’t just do their job, they are deeply invested in it. Their work is essential to their identity, how they live, the idea of who they are. (With less fully fleshed out protagonists, it can feel like that’s all they are.). Laurie King’s Kate Martinelli series, a police procedural set in 1990s and early-2000s San Francisco, is an excellent example of both workplace fiction and the workaholic detective. The first book A Grave Talent opens with the eponymous Kate being assigned to a high-profile serial killer case alongside a more senior detective, Al Hawkin, who doesn’t want to be saddled with her. It’s a work situation many of us have experienced, from either angle—fortunately for Kate, she’ll win Al over because she’s smart and competent and dedicated and overall worthy of being the protagonist of a series. An awareness of issues of gender and sexual orientation in the workplace runs through the books, which were written during the time period that they take place. Al’s initial objection to Kate is largely premised on her being a younger woman; subsequently, he’s relieved that she’s “not his type”, so it doesn’t make working together too distracting. The fact that Kate is a lesbian, in a long-term relationship, is also addressed in terms of work—she’s adamantly closeted, because she believes that being out in any way would make it too difficult for her to be a cop, despite the seismic strain it places on her relationship with her domestic partner Lee. At one point in A Grave Talent, Lee has to accept that if she forced Kate to choose, Kate would choose her job. Understanding the detective novel as a workplace novel also provides a possible reason for the increasing diversity in the ranks of our fictional detectives. As previously disenfranchised groups—women, ethnic minorities, openly queer individuals—have not only entered the workforce but taken on jobs in fields they were underrepresented in, we have seen a similar expansion within detective fiction, a broadening of possibilities for the types of characters who previously would never have gotten to play detective. In addition to Kate Martinelli, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone and Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan are accomplished female investigators who emerged in the later part of the twentieth century; and contemporary mystery fiction is rife with protagonists who look nothing like the forebears of the genre, even if they may draw inspiration from them. The Pentecost and Parker series by Stephen Spotswood and the Mossa and Pleiti series by Malka Older, for instance, are both queer, gender-swapped takes on classic sleuthing duos (Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, in one case, and Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, in the other). In The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti, the delightful space-opera cosy-mystery series by Malka Older, Mossa is a capital-i Investigator, an independent police agent, and Pleiti is an academic studying Earth’s ruined ecosystem and its possible reconstruction. They are both women, and have a complicated romantic relationship that adds depth and poignancy to their investigative dynamic. The Mossa and Pleiti books are deeply about work, the act and process of it, the significance it has for the characters and the world they live in. As a detective in the Holmesian tradition, Mossa is brilliantly logical and relentlessly focused, hellbent on unraveling whatever mystery is at hand. But Pleiti, as well, is someone whose life revolves around her work. She loves what she does and believes in the importance of her research, even if she comes to question the direction of her scholarship. Each book in the series (so far) is structured as a case that Mossa is investigating, but there is more on-the-page discussion of what Pleiti’s work involves, the different ideas that she and her colleagues are pursuing, and why they matter. The thoughtfulness with which Older treats Pleiti’s work—notwithstanding the fun she has with politics in academia, because low-hanging fruit—underscores the respect for and value accorded to work in detective fiction. A large part of our current cultural discontent with work, I think, is that it can’t be everything that we wish for. It’s incalculably rare to have an occupation that affords us existential purpose, meaningful accomplishment and satisfaction, and financial comfort. Not shifting our mindset about what work should be for us can lead to disappointment; at the same time, accepting a diminished conception of work in our lives and our identities will create resentment about how we’re frequently expected or required to devote the best parts of ourselves—time, effort, attention—to our jobs. Where does that leave us? Escaping into detective novels, perhaps, which despite their inherent murkiness (of facts and, at times, of morality) also contain an enviable clarity. Forget work-life balance, tasks of questionable import, arbitrary deadlines. This case needs to be solved now: let’s go. *** View the full article

When some readers hear that a novel concerns itself with spirituality, their first reaction may understandably be: Oh dear. When the terms “spiritual” and “narrative” keep close company, they suggest uncomfortable traveling companions: a vaguely ethereal story line, an absence of significant conflict, or characters who seem more symbolic than human. But it doesn’t have to be that way. After all, novels such as Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha or C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia are classics that bring us through the other side of the wardrobe to experience the world from a new point of view. Which is, after all, what the best fiction does. My reasons for writing a novel from the perspective of a Buddhist aren’t at all didactic. I write with a Buddhist eye on the world simply because that’s my path and I’m a writer. But just because I’m interested in Buddhist issues doesn’t mean that everyone else should be too. The challenge I face is how to engage readers who might not naturally be drawn to the kinds of ethical questions I find appealing. The solution: A good, page-turning story with characters (including, in my case, animals) that readers will care about. And as in any story, it’s important that those characters be strongly motivated, meet powerful obstacles to their objectives, and strive to surmount those obstacles as best they can despite their own blind spots, weaknesses, and fears. This isn’t a particularly original idea, of course; Shakespeare, whom the critic Harold Bloom called the creator of character, picked up plots from other playwrights, but what distinguished his plays was the power and elegance of his language combined with close attention to the complexities of character. For example, an old king who makes bad decisions about how to divide up his kingdom and dies tragically; a young prince who comes to realize that his father was murdered, and that the murderer is now sharing his mother’s bed (and dies tragically). Or an ambitious young warrior with an even more ambitious wife who overthrows his king, descends into murderous paranoia, and dies in the ensuing civil war. Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth—Shakespeare’s characters seem so alive that they embody archetypes even in our society today. You could take such simple plot lines and make terrible, melodramatic works of theatre, film, or television out of them. Or you could give them richly motivated, tormented, fully human characters and turn them into classics. So when creating such characters—subject to fully human angst and treachery and ecstasy and everything else—why leave out spiritual yearnings and experiences? For me, spirituality is at the heart of the human condition, as it raises important questions about who we are, how we got here, and what exactly is going on in a vast universe that contains unimaginable amounts of energy yet arose from an infinitely small singularity in a huge explosion 14 billion years ago. My own spiritual practice also leads me to investigate a question that I find important, relevant, and fascinating: how one can live a harmless and ethical life in a world that sometimes makes it extremely challenging to do so. In a sense, that’s the question at the heart of my novel, The Way, and I feel I will have succeeded if I’ve managed to make that question engaging for readers of all backgrounds. To make such spiritual questions come alive for readers in general, I rely on another aspect of craft that I refer to as “levels of conflict.” The gist of this is that fully realized characters will ideally confront multiple layers of conflict, and through that conflict will come to a clearer understanding of their purpose, or place, in the world. The first of these conflicts exists within individual characters’ minds, as they try to reconcile warring parts of their own desires—e.g., love vs. duty, action vs. inaction, rationality vs. emotion, survival vs. death. While this level of conflict is well suited to fiction writing, because of the natural interiority the form provides, it also creates the challenge of keeping the momentum going, since the “action” is all thought. Another level of conflict is that between the character and those close to her—friends, associates, family members, lovers—and is ubiquitous in fiction. This involves a kind of psychological drama that can often be interior but is also played out through dramatic scenes. A third conflict level is that between the character and society, as we see in stories such as Beloved and Huckleberry Finn (in both narratives, conflicts are driven by the intractable presence of slavery); or, for example, in the works of Austen and Dickens, where friction between individual yearnings and society’s maddening socioeconomic stratification lights the fires of discord. But the level of conflict that most interests me, and is most relevant to this discussion, is the one between the individual and the universe. This level brings matters full circle, because it overlaps with the first level, that of conflict within the mind of the character. From Oedipus onward, we’ve seen how ignorance, willfulness, greed, vanity, and similar traits bring one into conflict with the most profound aspects of our experience—whether manifested as fate, nature, God (or the gods), or simply as that vast expanse of space and time of which we have so little understanding, and which inspires us with wonder, humility, and occasional rage. I find this last level of conflict the most compelling, partly because it necessarily includes a reckoning with our mortality and the arresting brevity of our lives. This relates to an aspect of craft I had to figure out when I was writing my first novel, Exiles, and is relevant to The Way as well. There are characters in both novels that are well along the path to enlightenment, and they’re based on real people I’ve known. But I found that I couldn’t make such characters the books’ protagonists, because when you’re at a certain point in that development, inner conflict begins to dissipate. For example, there have been lamas, imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese military forces occupying Tibet, who later said in all sincerity that their primary concern was that their torturers were creating such terrible karma that they would suffer horribly in their next lives. Such people provide wonderful examples of what Buddhists call bodhicitta, or great compassion, but because their own spiritual development has, in this profound way, largely eliminated any inner turmoil, they may not make the most compelling protagonists in a work of fiction. I like having at least one example of a person like that in my books, but I always try to make sure my protagonists are more like me—wracked by fears and insecurities, unsure of what to do next, trying their best against terrible odds, and doubting their own wisdom. Those are the characters readers can relate to most fully, for all the obvious reasons, so those are the ones I want driving my narratives. Such characters, when fully formed, stop being mere cogs in the narrative machine. Instead, they climb into the driver’s seat and step on the gas. In the same vein, a spiritual or existential quest can infuse a narrative with as much dynamism as any other; it just requires a protagonist complex and interesting enough to carry it. *** View the full article

STORY STATEMENT “Haunted by fractured relationships, buried secrets, and a dangerous mystery, Alice must confront her tangled past and unravel the lies that bind her to her estranged sister, Amy—only to discover that the truth may cost her everything she’s fought to protect, including her own sanity.” The antagonist in my story isn’t just one person—it’s a mix of outside forces and the internal mess between the sisters. On the surface, there’s the investigation into Robyn’s disappearance. Langley is dangerous, a hunter, and wants answers after failing to save someone in a previous investigation. That’s the obvious threat. Then there’s people like Doug, throwing out accusations, and dragging Alice and Amy into the spotlight. But the real problem is Alice herself. She’s constantly trying to stay in control, to live above her traumas and the PTSD, and to create a false sense of self that doesn’t ever really work. even though she’s not good at it. TITLES: ALICE IN THE CITY OF ASHES ALICE IN CHICAGO FRACTURED PIECES OF HER COMPARABLES: Gone Girl Girl on the Train HOOK LINE: “Days after returning to Chicago to sell her late mother’s house, Alice’s childhood friend Robyn vanishes without a trace, plunging her into a spiraling mystery that forces her to confront the guilt of her fractured family, the lies she’s told herself, and a fragile bond with her distant sister, Amy.” Alice’s inner turmoil really comes from all the guilt that she’s hidden, and the carefully constructed image she has of herself and her life. She’s spent years burying the past, convincing herself that moving on means cutting off emotional ties—to Robyn, to Amy, even to their mother. I would describe her as a dismissive avoidant, created due to the caregiver not being supportive enough in their rearing stages. Yet, returning to Chicago and confronting her fractured relationship with Amy, along with the mystery surrounding Robyn, unravels this carefully managed control. It’s interesting that one can live in this state of ignorance for so many years, and being a psychiatrist, I’ve seen how when this happens, it creates for an even grander fallout when it all comes out. The setting of the story revolves around a dim, aging condominium in Chicago, specifically a a place called Kenwood that was chosen due to it’s history it’s affluence, much suited for the types of people that come from these sorts of environments if left left to their own devices, a space that feels frozen in time, much like the sisters’ unresolved past. The condo belonged to Janice, their late mother, and every corner of it carries her presence in a ll of its spaces. This isn’t just a house—it’s a mausoleum of memories, a place where every object is loaded with meaning.

OPENING SCENE - Introduces protagonist, one of the main settings, tone, and internal conflict I’ve always been infatuated with large masculine men. Sneaking glances, the water dripping off their broad shoulders in shower stalls of the gym. Girthy hands lacing up giant boots. Razor blades shaving their chiseled chins. Baritone voices boasting of weekend escapades. Even my older brother would catch me staring at his naked body. But don’t get me wrong. I don’t want them. I don’t desire them. Instead, I yearn to be them. I covet what they have. Their attributes highlighting my shortcomings. My previous therapist said it’s because I don’t love myself, because my mother didn’t nurture me and because the army corrupted my views on masculinity. She said I should be content with my life and what I have. Not compare myself to others. But what the fuck does she know? She listened to a few stories and is an expert on my life? She doesn’t know what it feels like to be in the locker room afraid to expose a prepubescent dick to boys the same age who already have hairy armpits and full-sized appendages. She was never told by her mom the bullying was her own fault. She’s never flown a helicopter through the swarming desolation of an Afghan night pretending to be brave while praying an anti-aircraft gun doesn’t tear the cockpit apart. She doesn’t see what I see when I close my eyes at night—my older brother engulfed in flames, his once perfect physique limp and lifeless. His beautiful face charred. His flesh burned through to the skull. Empty eye sockets gape and yearn for deliverance. His bare jaw mouths, “Help me, Sam. For the love of God, help—” I’m startled by a hand gripping my shoulder. “Are you with me?” Colonel Varrasco whispers. “Yes, sir.” “You drifted off for a minute.” His brief smile dissipates as he addresses the crowd with his usual stoic demeanor common to all field-grade officers. “What makes a good soldier?” he says. “The army manuals say it’s patriotism, selfless-service, personal courage, et cetera. But I’d like to just show you. This young officer, this warrior next to me, he is example every one of you cavalrymen should aspire to be.” Hundreds of soldiers and their families give me their half-drunken attention as I loiter on the stage next to the Colonel. Their stares are deferential but combined together they feel like one powerful and damning gaze. I close my eyes but find no escape, only the looming nightmare awaits. My brother’s face begs for salvation. My eyes blast open and fall upon American flags hanging off stone columns. Paintings of tanks and helicopters adorn the exposed brick walls. Every corner of Kevin Barry’s Irish Pub decorated with military paraphernalia, a reminder I am on River Street in Savannah, Georgia. My watch assures my brain it is 15 March 2018, two years since I left Afghanistan. But my body is never quite sure where we are. “So to begin tonight’s events,” Colonel Varrasco says, “I would like to propose a toast to this warrior.” Married soldiers sitting next to their spouses lift beer and wine into the air. Cocktails rise from the bachelors and the few single female soldiers standing in the rear. “To Captain Uistean Samuel Ashe. A true American soldier.” He nudges me with his elbow and I bump my glass of soda water against his Old Fashioned and nod towards the squadron. A symphony of clinks rings across the room. “Captain Ashe!” a soldier shouts. “Out Front!” “Hooah!” “Hey!” says a grizzled staff sergeant sitting at the bar in the back. “If you ain’t cav!” “You ain’t shit,” half the squadron recites with mild enthusiasm. That same sergeant, a scar running up the left side of his neck, stands and slams his mug on the bar. “If! You! Ain’t! Cav!” The entire room booms, “You! Ain’t! Shit!” “If you ain’t cav!” “You ain’t shit!” “If you ain’t cav!” “You ain’t shit!” “Hooah!” “Hooah!” “Damn I’ve missed you guys,” says Colonel Varrasco. “I’m so lucky. An unheard-of occasion for any officer, especially a former squadron commander to return to the same duty station and become the brigade commander.” “Hell yeah! Happy to have you again, Sir.” “Best commander we ever had!” “Out front!” “Lighthorse,” he responds. “Hooah!” “If you ain’t cav!” “You ain’t shit!” “If you ain’t cav!” “You ain’t shit!” Colonel Varrasco holds out a hand in a stop signal and the room quiets. “Now, before we begin, I’d like to explain the meaning behind this ceremony to any family members inexperienced the tradition. A Hail and Farewell is an old cavalry custom. We welcome those new to the squadron and say goodbye to those about to leave. And it’s a memorial for those we’ve already lost, who’ve already passed over to Fiddler’s Green. Let’s give them a moment of silence.” The quiescence in room does not settle my mind. I can’t find the respect or the reverence asked of me, only that ever-present blackhole of remorse and the unremembered nightmare. I try to fight the downward spiraling thoughts by focusing on the now like the therapist taught me. I listen to the faint folk music sneaking up the stairs from the concert hall below. A fiddle plucks in a happy rhythm but the minor key resounds of foreboding. I inhale the scent of meat pie circulating from the Irish buffet, herbal but I detect a hint of blood. I inspect the beams crossing the low ceiling, the wood gnarled as if damaged by shrapnel. “To the fallen,” Colonel Varrasco says breaking the silence. “Hooah!” “Tonight will be special,” Colonel Varrasco says, speaking without movement or gesture, hardly even a blink. Though only slightly taller and wider, his martial poise bestows a towering stature next to my current fidgeting. “Both the recoveries of Captain Ashe and his brother Lieutenant (Retired) Rian Ashe lasted past my change of command and departure from Savannah. And even after these two years they were never formally awarded their combat medals in a formation, as is custom. Nor was Lieutenant Rian Ashe ever farewelled from the unit after his medical retirement. Captain Ashe informs me his brother has been in worse shape than usual and can’t make it tonight. Regardless, we’ll dedicate the evening to him.” He extends his glass dripping with condensation. “Another toast, this time to Lieutenant Rian Ashe.” Drinks smash together. “Lieutenant Ashe!” “Hooah!” I reach too far to cheers my soda water against the colonel’s glass and my muscles spasm along the surgically repaired discs in my neck and back, the nerves more stressed than usual after trying to pick up my crippled and comatose brother off the floor two hours ago. Pain shocks like electricity and I nearly drop my drink. I glance back to the three-sided bar in the corner. A vast collection of bottles stack on wooden shelves, a beautiful backlit pyramid of booze. Dozens of pain-killing, muscle-relaxing, anxiety-suppressing whiskeys. “And now,” Colonel Varrasco says, “gathered together with our families, we’re going to do something unorthodox and two years too late. I want to finally honor Captain Sam Ashe’s actions as we approach the two year anniversary of that terrible night in Afghanistan by reading his combat award in front of the squadron for the first time.” My cheeks grow cold and I meet the colonel’s eyes. I shake my head and whisper, “Sir, please don’t. I would never have come if I knew this is what you were planning.”

Story Statement: Captain Sam Ashe is an alcoholic army officer who suffers from post-traumatic amnesia. Just before a wild Saint Patrick’s Day party he is ordered sober. If he disobeys he will face a discharge from the army and lose the last remaining vestige of his masculinity. This pushes him to deep self-reflection where his memories of the battle, the truth of what actually happened, finally return. Antagonist: Lt Colonel DeBeers, the super-soldier and commander of Captain Sam Ashe, is a perfect physical specimen. Yet he's a bully like those that have tormented Sam his whole life. Sam is blamed for a helicopter crash in a battle two years ago that killed one of Lt Colonel DeBeers's best friends and he resents Sam for this. It's the Colonel's order to force Sam into sobriety that sets the story in motion and eventually drives Sam to confront his dichotomous relationships with sexuality, alcohol, his brother, and himself while Sam tries to avoid the Colonel throughout the day. Working Title: Sin is a Good Man's Brother Other Options: Love Thyself as Thy Brother or A Drink to Remember Comps: Billy Flynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. It also a literary fiction novel about the military and the main part of the story also takes place with soldiers stateside in the US. It likewise utilizes flashbacks to the war, the driving force of the novel, to reveal information previously withheld. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. It is also a character study of a man in a crossroads of his life during a frenetic weekend of drunkenness, fights, and love triangles. To be honest I struggle with finding adequate comps and I could use help with this Logline: An alcoholic army helicopter pilot with amnesia and survivors guilt from a battle in Afghanistan two years ago is ordered to remain sober during a wild Saint Patrick’s Day party in Savannah. If he fails he will lose his career and the last vestige of his self-worth. Inner Conflict of the protagonist: Sam Ashe has never felt like a real man. He was bullied his entire life, was never nurtured by his mother, and has always lived in the shadow of his older (perfect) brother. He joined the military to prove his masculinity. But in Afghanistan he was blamed for an accident in a battle that cost one man's life and crippled his brother. Ravaged with survivor's guilt he has developed an alcohol problem and now risked being kicked out of the army if he can't stay sober. Excerpt: Fifteen years old and skulking in the dark I leer at our family’s desktop computer. Hearing a creek I yank my pants up to my waist and turn off the monitor. The old cuckoo clock above the door gongs midnight and I’m still alone. When my heartbeat settles I restart the screen and unzip my pants. The naked woman in the video entices me while servicing the man in bed with her. I’ve never done this before and don’t know if I am doing it right. The guys at wrestling practice talk about porn and I play along as if I know what they were talking about. And for years I’ve listened to Rian’s exploits. Last night he bragged how he ‘busted a nut’ in his girlfriend’s mouth. I don’t really know what that means and don’t even know how to kiss a girl. With no hair on my balls still waiting on my growth spurt, the mere act of showering naked in the locker room in front of other boys is terrifying. I can’t imagine my tiny body exposed to a girl, much less would I know what to do with her. As the man penetrates the woman my body tingles and my hips thrust into my hand until I go rigid. Unprepared for the sensation I moan with euphoria and sink into the chair with a feeling of contentment and success. I am capable. Finally I am growing up. Delight lures me into a daze. “Oh, dear Lord Jesus.” I startle awake and turn to see Mom in the doorway in a night gown, hands over her mouth. “It’s not what you think.” She snatches the wide leather belt hanging by the cabinets underneath a small wooden sign which reads, The Lord’s Wrath. “No, Mom. It’s normal.” The belt whacks across my shoulder. “Mom, please.” The next strike aims for my crotch but I shield my shriveled penis and slide into the fetal position on the floor. More lashes redden my arms and slap my thighs. “Stop crying. You’re old enough to defile yourself, you’re old enough to take your punishment.” The belt hums through the air like a lightsaber and tears pour on the floor. “How did I raise such a sinner?” “Mom?” Rian shouts as he dashes into the room. “What are you doing?” Already like a full grown man he snatches her and spins her away. “Your brother is disgusting.” Rian pulls up my pants. “It’s okay Sammy. You’re alright. I got you. Let’s go back to the room and talk.” “You are grounded, forever.” Secondary Conflict: Sam Ashe is in love with his crippled brother's wife. Pushed away by the brother she has developed feelings for Sam. Sam must decide whether to follow his heart or his self-damning moral compass calibrated by his strict Christian upbringing. Excerpt: I trudge into the den where a slight odor of shit and disinfectant lingers from my brother’s episode two nights ago. The TV displays CNN on mute. It reports the number of military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria over the images of military funerals across the country. “I wish you would have come earlier,” says Libby walking in behind me. “We need to talk.” “There’s nothing to talk about. Nothing happened.” “Don’t be distant. Not you too.” “Look, I couldn’t come. You know I have guests in town.” “Why are you even friends with them? They’re so crude.” “I don’t know. Habit. I’ve known them ten years.” “Sammy,” Rian calls. “Is that you?” Outside, he’s squished in his seat as if he had no bones, the wheelchair his exoskeleton. His dented head and unnatural hairline and scarred face props against a cushion. He appears asleep but I know he’s awake staring at the sun-rays filtering through the Sweetgum trees. “Maybe we can talk later,” I whisper to Libby as I push open the twangy screen door. “Hey big man. How are you?” Other secondary conflict: Sam struggles to regain his lost memories from the battle, which the reader experiences through flashbacks. Eventually he will uncover what actually happened that night. Setting: The novel takes place over two days simultaneously. One day in a wild Saint Patricks Day weekend in Savannah, Georgia where everyone is drunk but Sam has to remain sober. And the other flashbacks to a night in Afghanistan where a battle goes horribly wrong leading to deaths and the crippling injury of Sam's brother, which Sam is blamed for.

Great lesson for writers who suck but still know how to stimulate primal drives.

Hello from John Farrington. Here are the opening chapters to UNKNOWN DIRECTION: UNKNOWN DIRECTION OPENING CHAPTERS 1-2.docx