Cross book partly set in La., has lots of action

• By GREG LANGLEY
• Books editor
• Published: Jun 29, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Lee Cross’ Pandemonium in 2012 (Virginia City Publishing Company, $13.95 softcover) would be of little if any interest to local readers if it did not use Louisiana as one of its settings. It’s a fantasy tale that takes place in the near future when the president of the United States is a woman named Kipper Rodwell (very like Rodham). Rodwell is killed on a visit to Israel. Then when the vice president suddenly dies, the speaker of the house, Stuart Ramsey, assumes the presidency.

Ramsey represents Georgia, but he has only recently moved there from Nevada after winning a lottery. He is an unknown, and more important, he is a political independent. That is key to his choice as house speaker in Cross’s scenario of a Washington paralyzed by partisan bickering.

But before that … a really bad South American cocaine lord named Culebra who is really an Islamic fundamentalist named Bashan the Turk comes to south Louisiana to retrieve the cocaine one of his assistants has stashed there. The assistant committed suicide and blew up his boat just offshore of Terrebonne Parish. Bashan goes to Bayou Dularge to try to find out where the drugs were hidden. He leaves a trail of blood and gore behind him.

But … Ramsey is a maverick president who decides to take action against all the things that have made the country a bad place to live — illegal immigration, the Supreme Court, free trade — and his solutions work.

“Business was booming everywhere. The Rodwell depression-recession had disappeared. Ramsey’s tariff policies encouraged entrepreneurs to risk business capital in America.”

These lightning shifts in setting are matched only by the equally sudden changes in voice. Part of the time the book is in first person. Part of the time it’s in third person. Some of the time it’s in second person. Surprisingly, it’s not as confusing as it sounds. That’s because Cross lays out his issues rather clearly: they’re the concerns of the anti-government movement.

Those concerns include the ACLU, illegal immigration, gay marriage, oil companies, college graduates, slavery reparations, the UN and, above all, gun control. Cross manages to work all these into the complex plot, and if the characters weren’t so exaggerated, it would be an entertaining book. The biggest villains are not drug dealers, terrorists or multi-national corporations. Cross’s bad buys are radical leftists (ACLU, Supreme Court, etc.) who are taking the country in the wrong direction.

Fortunately, a group of revolutionaries who call themselves “The Patriots” are ready to fight for the rights of the silent majority. When Ramsey is impeached and deposed, they align themselves with his supporters and begin a guerilla war against the bogus government and its UN cronies.

Cross’ book offers a kind of alternative future. Will the foolish forces of tolerance hand the country over to the rapacious hordes of foreigners trying to force America to become a Islamic republic? Or will the white hats win out and make it possible for everyone who wants to work to make a good living? It’s easy to laugh at such simplifications, but there are real issues underlying Cross’ book, and he hits some nerves.

The subplot involving Louisiana is the best one of many, by the way. As a political tome, the book is naïve at best. As literature, it’s just bad. It’s full of violence and killing and even some sex, and because of that, it could be deemed an action tale. If Cross had kept that concept in mind from the beginning, he could have written a much better book.

Poetry reading
At 7 p.m. Thursday, July 3,  New Orleans performance poet Valentine Pierce will read original poetry in Grand Coteau.
Pierce’s poems have been published throughout the U.S. with recent publications in Callaloo and Yawp: a journal of poetry and art. Pierce’s collection of poetry, A Geometry of the Heart, (Portals Press) was released in 2007.

The performance will be followed by an Open Mic of poetry and music in which everyone is invited to participate. This free event takes place 7 to 9 p.m. at Casa Azul, 232 ML King Drive. Free black beans and rice will be served.

Pierce will also teach a poetry performance workshop 9 a.m.-noon Saturday, July 5, at Town Market in Arnaudville. The fee is $35.
For more information on the reading or the poetry workshop, call Patrice (337) 662-1032 or e-mail casa.azul.gc@gmail.com. Sponsored by the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Acadiana Arts Council.