THE EVIL THAT WHITE MEN DO
About this book
The Evil That White Men Do is both a satiric and sympathetic take of the current turmoil about Donald Trump and race relations in the United States. It is a novel in the tradition of Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, J. P. Dunleavy and my own Murder in the Museum of Man, which the New Yorker called “An adroit, hilarious send-up.” Trump’s election devastates Claire Fitzmorgan, who teaches English literature at Byles, a small college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Not only has political correctness run amok at Byles, but Claire, ironically enough, has been passed over for tenure in favor of a man. This puts her at odds with the department head, the aging, acerbic, old-school Giles Newcombe. Coming in the aftermath of these professional set-backs, Hillary Clinton’s defeat all but unhinges Claire. She not only spent time, money, and passion on the campaign, but she had staked much of her identity as a woman on the election. The triumph of Donald Trump deepens her angst. For Claire, the man personifies all that is wrong about white male America. Her chagrin and disappointment give way to a depression that leads to a bad case of what some choose to call Trump derangement disorder. She can scarcely abide hearing that name much less seeing that face on every available screen. In her misery, she associates Trump with Fergal O’Fallon, her alcoholic, outspoken, and contrarian father-in-law. Worse, she conflates Fergal with her techie husband Donal and their precocious, six-year-old son Finn. They come to form a triptych of white maleness that twists her heart and mind. Increasingly angry, confused, and vulnerable, she leaves Donal and Finn to go with her best friend, the wealthy Mims Pappas, to Eagle Nest Farm, a rural retreat in the northern Berkshires of Massachusetts. There, for a hefty sum and in decidedly primitive conditions, they join fifty or so like-minded souls, many of them women, seeking to to be cured of whiteness. In the temper of the times, whiteness, specifically white male whiteness, is viewed by many as a rapidly emerging social pathology. At Eagle Nest Farm, as part of the cure, the members experience life as it was lived before the advent of the white man. There they also imbibe the wisdom of the charismatic Nogumi, a trans-racial, trans-cultural, trans-gender holy woman. To some it would appear as an elaborate scam, one not without its adventures, its dangers, and its inadvertent dark humor. Claire, a devotee of Virginia Woolf, keeps a journal in which she comments on Nogumi’s frequent homilies to the assembled members and records her own mixed feelings. So much of what Nogumi says about white male whiteness and the ills of the modern world initially make sense to her. Then doubts creep in. At the same time her husband Donal begs and threatens in letters (no phones are allowed) in an attempt to have her return home. His efforts include a visit to the farm with Finn, a visit that does not go well. She is conflicted and decides after several weeks that she wants to return to her old life, despite the ever looming Trump. But in the meanwhile, the rich and pampered Mims, to whom Claire is devoted, has joined the Paleo Realm. This is an experiment in Stone Age living located in the nearby woods. Here, in conditions so primordial that even language is forbidden, its denizens live off the land in a haphazard sort of way. Staffed by three young, studly men, the Paleo Realm is in reality little more than a male brothel serving the needs of those members in need of servicing. Once there, Mims, hooks up with one of the young men and doesn’t want to leave. She has found her real self in being, as she puts it, a fake among fakes. Claire hesitates, torn between loyalty to her friend and wanting to return to her real world. At which point things fall apart as in a nightmare within a nightmare.