Hello all, I enjoy writing about writers, authors and their work. I am new here
THE CREED OF VIOLENCE by Boston Teran, which is to be published in the Fall of 09 by Counterpoint Books, is a towering epic of Americana. A novel that will become a seminal companion to the works of such as Cormac McCarthy and John Ford. Ferocious in its telling, rich in time and place, exciting and emotionally moving, so much so Universal Studios bought the film rights for “the second highest price ever paid for an unpublished manuscript.” And that was before any publishers had even read the manuscript. Yes, before they had even read the manuscript. An unheard of scenario. Well, if not unheard of, certainly so rare you wouldn’t want to challenge the betting line on it at Vegas.
Of course, everything about the career of the authors known as Boston Teran has not only challenged the betting lines, but has absolutely defied it. It is a magic act par extraordinaire. You will note that I refer to the authors that are known as Boston Teran. If you haven’t read my original article THE AUTHOR WHO DOESN’T EXIST, you can link on and do so. I have long made the case that there is not one, but several writers working in silent harness, and that the name Boston Teran is, if you will, their coat of arms. Or, in a more post modern sense, their trademark. That being said, THE CREED OF VIOLENCE fits into the grand pattern and design Teran’s previous works have so purposefully plotted out. And the essential links in all these works, like Adriadne’s thread, woven from story to story - as if they were all part of one great labyrinth – are name and identity. Name and identity.
Read GOD IS A BULLET, NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD, THE PRINCE OF DEADLY WEAPONS, in each of these at least one of the main characters not only changes his or her name, but takes on a completely new identity. As Saul Bellow wrote, and is quoted in THE LANGUAGE OF NAMES… “by taking on a new identity an unfinished person may hope to enter into more satisfactory transactions with the world and with his, or her true soul.” These changes in the Teran canon are not nominal, but transformational. And that is the essence and the underpinnings of the Teran works. Transformation. Particularly in this most recent novel.
Let me give you a brief thumbnail of the book from an official agency press release – THE CREED OF VIOLENCE centers on an alienated father and son. The father is a criminal and common assassin, the son an agent for the Bureau of Investigation (the original FBI). Their destinies entwine when they must deliver a truckload of munitions to the oil fields of Mexico during the Revolution of 1910. A Sergio Leone type epic of America set against a backdrop of revolution, violence and political corruption that draws parallels to our present war in Iraq. There are merits to such swiftly designed synopses especially if they give one a sense – a true sense – the genuine is burning in the flash of those few sentences. __________________________
Before I go into depth about the book let me seed your curiosity with a little second hand source material I picked up along the way to this article. The source plays a minor role at a publishing company, so minor in fact she is known around the office affectionately as, “Hey, you.” I met “Hey, you” at a gym where we both were in mortal combat against the laws of gravity. Well “Hey, you” told me the literary agent, Natasha Kern, had sent the manuscript to editors at a very few select publishing houses.
Within forty-eight hours she and Donald Allen, who is the business manager for Boston Teran, were inundated with calls of interest and offers from the film community for rights to the work. Producers of every style and sales pitch, at least one an Oscar winner, influential and bankable directors, two movie stars and a number of studios, plus assorted others. Somehow the manuscript had magically made its way from a select handful of editors at publishing houses to everyone in the known world involved in film.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes had nothing on this. And so Boston Teran had, thanks to someone at a publishing house sneaking out the manuscript, a multi-million dollar film deal on THE CREED OF VIOLENCE before anyone had either accepted or rejected the manuscript for publication. What followed is a story unto itself, not only about how the industry works, but its “unusual” attitude toward Teran that some conclude is downright “biased” against the author, and authors like him. But first, the book. THE CREED OF VIOLENCE opens by introducing the father, notorious criminal and assassin, and a brief history of his life. It begins: “He was born in Scabtown on the day Lincoln was assassinated.”
The second chapter begins by introducing the son, agent for the BOI, in a direct parallel: He was born in the Segundo Barrio of El Paso on the day Ulysses S. Grant died.” And so the author with a few brush stroke sentences connected these men not only by blood, but by history. As Lincoln and Grant were fated to take a journey through violence and war that would alter their lives forever, so too would father and son. In the sure worded sketch of each life there was another way these men were linked together that goes directly to the lifeblood of the Teran litany.
Each had not only changed his name, but his absolute being. We never know the father’s true name, only that he was born in a hovel of gambling and prostitution by Fort McCavett, Texas to a prostitute mother, probably German, and a father who was one of the many that paid for the woman’s services. After his mother is killed, and still a boy living by his wiles, this tough urchin took on the name of a prizefighter he saw battling on the fort parade grounds. This prizefighter, blood soaked but unbroken, touched a place of power inside the boy that he had not imagined existed. The prizefighter’s name was Rawbone. The very sound of it, the very intimations of meaning to the name were exactly what the boy was to become as a man. It was not long after taking this name the young Rawbone murdered and robbed his first victim. And in a chillingly written revelation of character - washed the dead man’s coins of blood in the river… until they shined. The son was born in a rank barrio alley of El Paso… “behind a factory where desert immigrants seamed together American flags.” His was a quintessential first generation American birth. The boy’s mother was a Latina, who had crossed the border and faced the fumigation sheds to find a better life in El Norte and had fallen for a charming argonaut with a dangerous story. From the mother the boy learned goodness and hard work, from the father, “the creed of weapons.” From the mother he was made to read and write, from the father he was wizened in the ways of illegal trafficking and the criminal mind. This was a child born of world views at war. His name, for him, was “rife with shame.” It was not long after his father’s abandonment the mother died of endless hardship and a broken heart. And so, the son was orphaned as a boy, and not much older than the father, when he too, had been orphaned.
On his own in the streets of El Paso, the son changed his name. His mother had always wanted to visit Lourdes in France. She even had a postcard of it she kept nailed to the wall of their hovel. It had been, for her, a spiritual dream that went unfulfilled. And so, the son took the sobriquet – John Lourdes – and began his rise in the eyes of the world. Each man’s name is elemental purity, and the essence of who each longs to be on some profound level. Such a classic American theme, in fact and in literature. It is also, in the case of Rawbone and John Lourdes, an act of defiance and rebellion. A denunciation of the rules of society and the rites of tradition. Is it not also essentially what the author or authors known as Boston Teran are doing? And what other writers should take note of, especially young and struggling writers, who so want to succeed but are confronted with the overwhelming rules and rites of the publishing world. Are not they, the writers known as Boston Teran, creating their own pathway, establishing their own rules of engagement when it comes to the ways and means of succeeding in the world of the written word? Are they not proving there is a place for defiance and rebellion? __________________________
In the early days of the revolution, Rawbone bums a ride with a truck on the road to El Paso, as John Lourdes works a downtown border crossing, clandestinely watching for illegal contraband. And as the father poisons the truck driver and his aide with whiskey from a flask, the son follows a suspicious deaf girl into the barrio of Juarez. I will not detail the brilliant machinations or driving character impulses that ultimately brings these two men together at a dramatic moment in downtown El Paso. I will only say that John Lourdes and Rawbone had been hunting this moment for many years. And for both it will bring restitution, for both it will bring tragedy. To both, it will bring destruction. To both, it will bring redemption. In a surprising turn of events Rawbone is taken alive by John Lourdes and the Bureau of Investigation early in the tale, at the home of Rawbone’s only friend, one Wadsworth Burr.
Burr is a wealthy and one time influential El Paso attorney. Imagine a Melvin Belli or Clarence Darrow with a taste for the dark side of life, who also happens to be a morphine addict. Yet, he is to become an elegant voice throughout the novel. Burr is a man with an astonishing intellect and a profound lucidity. Not only about the internal workings of the soul, but of a future that has quietly arrived though is as yet unnoticed. It is a future that births the title of this work, a future where violence is not only an integral part of the political landscape, but the essential tool at creating the landscape. Where it frames every motive, every action, and every result. Where it is the greatest singular driving force to confront the difficult hours of any situation. Burr, it will turn out, is to be an important catalyst at pivotal moments in what is to become the mythic journey of a father and son, as they descend into a violent arena of political and social revolution. For his past crimes, Rawbone can expect no less than a few righteous moments with the executioner.
But, Burr has in mind a daring plan he presents to the head of the El Paso Bureau. The truck Rawbone stole after murdering the driver and his aide, was secretly packed away with munitions. These were to be delivered into Mexico. That is an illegal act. And in those times, with Mexico on the brink of a war that could effect U.S. border security, a war that could jeopardize our corporate holdings in the vast oil fields of Tampico, a war that could send the price of oil on the international markets skyrocketing, it would be imperative to uncover the motive and the men behind this potentially “terroristic” act. This is where the threads of the story begin to parallel our present struggles in the middle East and Iraq. It is where we see a world view unfold that begat the world view of today. The title is no accident. The concept of the title is no accident.
The Creed of Violence spells… the future. Burr’s offer – his client will deliver the truck with its cache of weapons, his client will uncover its nefarious chain of title. And the client, with his particular “ciriculum vitae”, is the perfect vessel for such a dangerous enterprise. And the price – immunity for all past crimes. The dramatics that followed, and how the Bureau came to agree to such a venture I will leave for the reader’s pleasure. But the why of it can be summarized in a phrase used throughout the novel and coined by one Justice Knox, who runs the El Paso Bureau of Investigation. That phrase – the practical application of strategy. And it’s not just a slogan. It will have a determinative impact on events. It also portends a world view that is future looking, and where the business of life should be conducted with an icy fastness to the phrase in all matters political, social, legal and human. So, let the better angels of our nature, be warned. As part of this secret enterprise, the Bureau intends to send one of its own with Rawbone to insure he fulfills his obligation.
Justice Knox makes it clear, if some unexplainable assassination or fatal circumstance should befall that agent, Rawbone will be resigned to his fate. The Bureau, at that time, had only a handful of agents. Of those, a bare few were in some way qualified for the task. And of those few only one spoke fluent Spanish – John Lourdes. And in his case Justice Knox was not convinced Lourdes was the right man to send. Knox had questions… “not about your character, but about your attitude…” It seemed John Lourdes had not shown he could fully abide by… “the practical application of strategy.” He had a dangerous streak of what one might define as “independence.” John Lourdes was even advised against taking the assignment, but swore to abide and administer according to Justice Knox’s demands. Of course, his private aim was to see that the man no one knows as his father, did not return from Mexico alive.
- PART II – The Journey into Mexico will be posted shortly
