The great humanitarian and mythologist, Joseph Campbell, challenged each one of us to ask ourselves, "What did you do as a child that created timelessness, that made you forget time? Therein lies the myth to live by."
As a child, I created an aqueous medium for myself that allowed me to swim in "timelessness." The chlorine water within my imagined swimming pool? I fantasized I was on a great adventure. It's not surprising to me now the novel I'm currently writing, Charging the Jaguar, is intended to deliver on my requirements of a great adventure.
The novel fits into a hyphenated genre called "literary-adventure." By doing a Google search on that term I came up with some wonderful novels to read. Starting in next month's EWA, I'll be commenting on a truly great novel that was on that "literary-adventure" list, Peter Matthiessen's Shadow Country.
Here's an interesting and relevant sidelight: Peter Mattiessen was a CIA agent in post-WWII Europe, specifically in Paris. During that time he founded a very famous literary magazine called The Paris Review. It turns out Mattiessen's position as editor of The Paris Review was his "cover story" as a CIA agent, his excuse, if you will, for spending so much time in Europe, especially in Paris, yet at the same time giving him free rein to move around at well. I'm telling you all this because it turns out my novel has something to do with the CIA and with "cover stories."
Charging the Jaguar takes place in Colombia in the year 1967. Because that's more than 50 years ago, it's technically considered "historic fiction." Yet the story, as the novel unfolds—as you will see when you read it—is written in present tense, something that adds value to its immediacy, I believe.
One of my principle protagonists is an American, a Peace Corps Volunteer from Secaucus, New Jersey, named Jake Lancer, a recent graduate of Rutgers Newark, who has been living in a remote northern Colombian pueblo—called Manaure—for only three months as our story opens.
Another is a Colombian, FARC Lieutenant Porfirio Ayuduarte-Robles. Porfirio is a revolutionary soldier who is attached to a FARC base deep in the jungle that's about a five-hour walk from Manaure).
Porfirio, an alcoholic since he was 14, has a reputation for being a perpetual fuck-up; he wants to quit drinking to save his life—not only so he won't die of alcohol poisoning or xerosis of the liver; but also so he won't be "Sent home to his Mamma" by his commanding officer, Colonel Pablo Velasquez-Gomez. That "sent home" phrase is FARC-code for being assassinated by the Colonel holding a handgun at point-blank range up to the side of his victim's head.
Colonel Velasquez has received word that an American living in the pueblo of Manaure has been acting suspiciously. He's been traveling around to different pueblos in the area collecting infrastructure information from the mayors of those villages. This gringo may have a legitimate reason for his activities, or he may be an undercover CIA agent.
Colonel Velasquez orders Porfirio to go undercover—using his code-name, "Jesus" and his "cover story" of being a local businessman—to find this gringo in his village of Manaure, and, in short order, become "best buddies" with him. Pablo sets up Porfirio to be Jake's judge and jury: If, after spending some time with him, Porfirio decides the American is an undercover CIA agent Pablo tells him he has his commanding officer's permission in advance to assassinate him. If Porfirio decides he's legit, he tells Porfirio to make up an excuse ("a business meeting has come up"), and return to the FARC camp and report to Pablo.
It just so happens that on the very same day Pablo sends Porfirio on that five-hour cross-country hike to Manaure, Jake has arranged for his Regional Supervisor, Steven Lee Hawks, to also come to his rent-house in Manaure and give him an appraisal of how he has been doing as a rookie Peace Corps Volunteer. Jake is fearful Steven Lee (who hails from Van Horn, Texas, by the way) might send him home because he's such a poor Spanish speaker.
That's what's known as "the set-up" of my story.
It goes without saying, the undercover FARC soldier, Porfirio, meets Jake. They become friends. Porfirio also meets Jake's regional supervisor, Steven Lee Hawks. Some might expect a comedy of errors. I see far more poignant possibilities for this "set-up." You'll have to read it to start to pick up on all the mixed and missed signals between the characters. (While my writing may be comic in nature, it's not comedy.)
(By the way Charging the Jaguar is a reference to Jake Lancer's character trait of impulsivity. If Jake were ever charged by a Jaguar, which is highly unlikely, he probably would not think to run away; instead, he might charge the Jaguar. No, my book title not a reference to charging the battery of an automobile that goes by the same name.)
Here are some background elements of my novel that have, at least in my opinion, the power to sweep me along on a great adventure. These are the "pre-conditions of story," if you will, that I crave:
--Powerful forces are at play. World governments are acting on a global stage. Names deeply rooted in our psyche—President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the CIA, the Vietnam Conflict, Fidel Castro, Che Guevarra, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr., "the long, hot summer of 1967." Big personalities and events are in play. (For example, on October 9, 1967, the Bolivian Army, with the assistance of the CIA, assassinated Che Guevara.) Big, powerful, rumbling forces are on the move.
--You're being watched. You have come to the attention of some powerful official because you're performing a set of activities that might be totally innocent but, on the other hand, might not be.
--Laws are not uniformly enforced. There's ambiguity about what the law is and about what the right thing to do is. The privileged get away with plenty of, well, privileged activities. For those prepared to pay the price, justice is always available. But, like lobster at the dock, the price of justice varies daily. Corruption? U.S. corruption is nothing like you find in Afghanistan, Iran or Miramar. At least we have some honest public servants who tell the truth and refuse to be corrupted. How about in Colombia? We see the signs of corruption all around us. Those who live by their own code carry their own firearms, concealed or otherwise. They sometimes travel with their own army. Another pre-condition: You may have to become your own lawman or sheriff. You may even have to deputize yourself.
--Our borders are porous.Cross-border smuggling, human trafficking and other illegal activities are popular, to the point where ordinarily honest people start to ask, "Hey, why don't we start a syndicate of our own? How about a crime wave?"
Although these conditions pertain to my novel, they largely also pertain to most Westerns I grew up watching in movie theaters and on television. In fact, at one point in my novel Steven Lee Hawks (the one who grew up in Van Horn) tells Jake Lancer (who grew up in New Jersey) the area of Colombia he's living in is "cattle country" and in many respects resembles the Wild West frontier of the1870s. That's a direct reference to the kinds of stories and legends I created for myself to create timelessness when I was a child. It also happens to be a fair description of the area around Valledupar where I served in the Peace Corps in the 1960s.
Next month, I start discussing Shadow Country, the work of the truly great novelist and environmental activist, Peter Matthiessen. The region the title of the book refers to is an area of extreme southwestern Florida called "The Ten Thousand Islands," an area where the reach of the law is tenuous and the border is porous. For that reason it's an area that attracts people who may be wanted by the law in other more settled jurisdictions of the U.S.
