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6
LAURENTIAN
REVIEWS
F
ollowing up the success of his
Daedalus
trilogy—in
which he combines historical elements of the Napoleonic
era with the genre conventions of traditional science
fiction—Martinez begins his new
MJ-12
(abbreviating
the codename for the covert government program that is the focus
of the novel: MAJESTIC-12) series by setting up what initially
seems like a Cold War spy novel in the early days of the Central
Intelligence Agency, and then grafting onto it the kinds of
extraordinary abilities associated with superhero narratives. Four
people from very different walks of life find themselves quite
suddenly in possession of talents that radically disrupt
their lives: during a parent-teacher conference, Maggie
Dubinsky’s personal turmoil reaches out and impacts a
father, turning a pillar of the community into an
emotional firestorm; Calvin Hooks prays over the
horribly-injured arm of a man who’d been taunting
himmoments before an accident at a tire factory
occurred, and instantly his own energy and vitality
begins to drain into the stricken co-worker; Lieutenant
Frank Lodge learns while fighting in the final days of
World War II that when someone dies in his
proximity, that individual’s memories and skills pass to
him; and Ellis Longstreet discovers that his touch can unwittingly
(and unpredictably) transmute one substance into another.
With the approval of President Harry Truman, Navy
Lieutenant Commander Danny Wallace is assigned the
supervision of the MJ-12 project, including the recruitment and
training of its personnel assets, called “Variants” with enhanced
abilities. Once these characters are introduced, the novel is
propelled by the conflicts created by essentialist positions, social,
political and spiritual. The most obvious ideological opposition of
the era, Soviet versus American, simply introduces the many
struggles of the time, namely equal rights for American women
and minorities. These issues contextualize the personal challenges
facing each of the characters. Danny Wallace is torn between his
empathetic connections to the basic human needs of the Variants
under his authority and the political agendas they are obliged to
serve as “assets” of the CIA. When Maggie Dubinsky
unexpectedly becomes a person of power, her enhanced abilities
and the opportunities they open up are shadowed by an increasing
tendency toward overcompensation, becoming increasingly more
masculine in her exercise of control. Cal Hooks learns that he can
extract the life force from others as well as give it, which initiates a
fundamental moral dilemma for him as a committed Christian
believer. Frank Lodge learns that the knowledge and skills he
retains from others cannot be dissociated from the people to whom
they belonged: his mind becomes a melting pot of human voices
and personalities. And the challenges to Ellis Longstreet’s private
prejudices serve as microcosms of the pressures that American
society had to begin addressing in the post-WWII era.
The mysterious origin of their abilities is only one of the
elements tantalizing us here, as the MJ-12 team prepares to
interact with a group of their Soviet counterparts (who, in
contrast to the conflicted Americans’ labeling of such gifted
people as “Variants,” instead refer to themselves as
“Empowered”), without any information about what abilities
they possess. Readers looking for a page-turning, character-
centered speculative narrative will have plenty to enjoy in the
opening novel of this new series.
n
JENNY WILLIAMSON ’02
Collections of Flaws in a Black Dress
FINISHING LINE PRESS, 2016
BY SARAH BARBER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
C
ollection of
flaws
in
a
black dress
, the first
chapbook of poems by Jenny Williamson ’02, is a
heart-breaker. In 26 poems, Williamson explores love
and loss with star-struck and fiery language that is
also earthy and playful. From the beginning, the reader trusts
this poet to speak deeply and truly about how desire overwhelms
us: “I touched my tongue to the place at the root of your throat /
and fell like a planet around a star,” she writes, describing an
early encounter with the beloved. This is a poet the reader is
eager to follow: “the world is bright as citrus,” she writes,
seducing not just the addressee of this particular poem but her
readers to “Stay. Just for a minute”—whether it is to watch with
her how “Outside the window the night sky / is being dramatic”
or to walk, insomniac, with her at night when “my heart is a box
of bees / and I can’t sleep.” The lover’s lexicon—all those words
by which we name pleasure, grief, longing, pain—is
Williamson’s companion on her journey
from desire through suffering to
acceptance. Her humor, searing self-
examination, and sharp eye ensure that
every reader will find in this brave book at
least one line that captures exactly some
past or present moment in his or her
sentimental education.
n
MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ ’93
MJ-12: Inception
NIGHT SHADE BOOKS, 2016
BY SID SONDERGARD, PISKOR PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
ON CAMPUS