[2 articles]
New Novel Tackles Terrorism in the City
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575220290175384742.html
MAY 3, 2010
By PIA CATTON
Saturday's attempted car bombing in Times Square is eerily similar to
the events imagined by author David Goodwillie in his new novel
"American Subversive," in which a number of bombings on American soil
are intended to convey outrage and halt specific businesses. Here,
the author reflects on a strange confluence of art and life.
Wall Street Journal: We don't yet know who is responsible for the
attempted bomb in Times Square, but what are some of the similarities
between your novel and reality?
David Goodwillie: "American Subversive" takes place in the summer of
2010. I set this in the future, but the future has arrived.
The novel is about a small cell of domestic radicals, similar to
groups like the Weather Underground. They bomb specific entities.
First, they bomb a coal mine to bring attention to those issues.
Then, in New York City, they bomb a hedge fund office above
Barneysand much like this bomb, nobody knows who has done it. They
also bomb a media headquarters.
Whereas Muslim extremists seem to want to inflict as much damage and
fear as possible, American domestic terrorism has traditionally been
smaller and more targeted.
WSJ: After writing a novel about terrorism, what was your reaction to
the news on Saturday?
Mr. Goodwillie: The first thing I thought was, could this be domestic
terrorism? It seems like the work of a few people. Isn't it strange
that they left the car in the middle of Times Square? What's their
message? Is someone is doing this just to kill a lot of people or
instill American paranoia?
WSJ: For your book, you interviewed people who had been involved in
domestic terrorism. What do think the people responsible for the
Times Square car bomb are doing?
Mr. Goodwillie: Most terrorists like to bask in the glow of their
destruction. They're probably watching the news and wishing it were
more about their bombing and less about the oil spill.
WSJ: "American Subversive" touches on the way that New Yorkers deal
with fear and keep going. You've lived in Manhattan for years. What
were you trying to capture?
Mr. Goodwillie: We're all aware of New York being target number one.
We are the center of world business, we're also on an island. There
is an ambitious kind of person who lives here who is not going to be
freaked out. We're a hardy bunch.
--
Write to Pia Catton at [email protected]
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A Novel for Our Time
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-30/a-novel-for-our-time/
by Claire Howorth
4/30/10
With its bloggers, female terrorists, and downtown hipsters, David
Goodwillie's debut novel, American Subversive, seems ripped from the
headlines, but Claire Howorth praises a rare novel that gets the
moment even as we're living it.
Recently the Pentagon released more details of last September's
thwarted terrorist attack on New York: A few Muslim terrorists
planned to stand in the middle of crowded subway cars and blow
themselves up mid-tunnel. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, most
Americans worry about what's next, but perhaps New Yorkers are
especially sensitizedthings that go bump in the night, a fleet of
wailing sirens, a subway car held a minute too long between stops; it
all can make any heart pause.
Now, suppose the Next Thing isn't a suicidal al Qaeda henchman
lurking in the subway, but a young, upper class, college-educated
American woman who decides to blow up Barneys on Madison Avenue? We
wouldn't have seen that one coming. A stretch? Not in American Subversive.
David Goodwillie has set his expansive novel in the unsettlingly near
future of 2011. In Lower Manhattan, Aidan Cole gossip-blogs his way
into self-decay; like so many young professionals in the
post-recession grimness, he has become disenchanted with his
profession and pessimistic about his future. At night, Aidan parties
with rich, connected, fabulous friends, including a handsome South
American financier, Touché (who becomes the plot's perfect red
herring), and Aidan's bland, unlikable girlfriend, Cressida. (The
ostentatious character names are my lone quibble.)
American Subversive is at its best and brightest here in Aidan's
world. An insider-y satire of the incestuous media world is at
playAidan's boss, Derrick Franklin, at the gossip website
Roorback.com, are Nick Denton and Gawker if fiction ever claimed
them; Cressida, a newspaper reporter, is the archetypally ambitious
lit-girl. And boy, she really is just so hard to like. Her
disagreeable character helps only to propel the reader toward a
certain empathy with the other woman in Aidan's lifethe terrorist.
Touché, too, is a well-hewn caricature of that outlier every New
Yorker counts as an acquaintance: the really, really rich,
coincidentally sexy guy whose luck unfurls like a plush, golden
carpet before his every step. Touché's family counts a sprawling
Fishers Island estate and friendship with the likes of J.D. Salinger
among their many assets. All thisthe fun stuff that the most
Gatsbyan stories are made ofis the material Goodwillie is most
comfortable with, and it shows.
Which is not to say he doesn't do misguided politico-chick well.
Indeed, it's remarkable that anyone would be able to ably achieve a
narrative that captures what makes a female terrorist tick, but he
pulls it off.
While Aidan's having ambivalent sex with his equally ambivalent
girlfriend, Paige Roderick has left her job in D.C. and returned to
North Carolina to mourn the death of her brother, a soldier killed in
Iraq. Emotionally razed and adrift, she has fallen into league with
her brother's old Appalachian palsa band of neo-hippies dedicated to
varying degrees of radicalism: Some are mere dabblers, happy to smoke
joints and talk politics around the campfire; others, the ones Paige
allies herself with, are violent activists, derivatives of and
subsidized by aging members of the Weather Underground. The fine line
between murderous fanaticism and impassioned activism is part of what
Goodwillie aims to explore in the book.
When an explosion tears through Barneys, Aidan receives an anonymous
email reading "She did it," and a picture of Paige. How did this
normal, pretty girl become a dangerous revolutionary, and why does
Aidan of all people receive such information? Aidan, under the
delusion that involving the police or FBI would be a mistake, and
half hoping he can break a major story and reinvigorate his career,
decides to find Paige himself. Meanwhile, the radicals, whose
previous attacks have been casualty-free, plan to set off another
bomb, this time filled with nails, glass, and shrapnelthis time,
meant to kill peopleand Paige balks; American Subversive kicks into high gear.
Paige and Aidan's surprising connection to a Weatherman becomes the
most interesting historical tangent. Fortunately, Goodwillie does not
provoke post-Obama Bill Ayers fatigue, but effectively toys with the
idea that some aggressive political movements were founded with good
reason and reasonable intention, even if ultimately the wrong
approach. (Lest anyone mistake the exploration of concepts here for
any sort of advocacy for violence, he or she has missed the point.)
American Subversive skillfully spins the themes of morality, loyalty,
and patriotism into an insightfully entertaining commentary on modern
history and contemporary society. Don't mistake a buried exegesis for
seriousness, though. Goodwillie's wit serves his story wellin
addition to all of the perfectly authentic character quirks, there's
some wry terrorist banter, playful Post-style headline writing, and
loads of well-informed satire. This is a fast-paced, engaging novel
of pop-culture and big ideas, authentically subversive, and
thoroughly American.
--
Claire Howorth is on staff at Vanity Fair and lives in Brooklyn.
.
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