If, when you finish reading River City One (Knox Press; November 7, 2023) by John Waters, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick comes to mind, then you are in touch with a genuine continuity of insight. Waters is a war veteran. Because he served in Afghanistan and Iraq, he is a survivor of trauma, an Ishmael of our times. Like that character, this author has escaped alone to warn us about ourselves.
It is not a foreign or supernatural foe who has destroyed our Pequod and sent its captain and crew to ocean-like depths of despair. As Moby Dick did to Captain Ahab, we the American people have struck back at those who would relentlessly seek us out to serve their need to build a City Upon a Hill, to stand like the Rock of Ages, to have us be strong, brave, stoic, and heroic. We Americans are not up to that task anymore. And so, we have turned on our captains and sunk our own ship.
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