The Next Great American Novel

I’ve always wanted to write the next great American novel. Well not so much write it, but have it. The writing part sounds so… arduous. Yes, I’d like to be the author of a Great American Novel that I don’t have to write.

So… I’ve been waiting. And waiting. And now I’m out of ideas. How am I supposed to be a famous, groundbreaking, uncompromising, truth-telling and mind-shifting author if I don’t even have a novel? This novel is not manifesting itself… not even as an ebook! What am I supposed to do?

It’s not like I haven’t contributed. It’s not like I’m just telling the heavens to create a novel out of nothing. I do have ideas. I even wrote down some notes that any half decent heavens would be able to take and run with. And yet… I’m still waiting. In my my mind, the hard part is done. The novel I imagine is:

A real fiction, based on a truth that no one has or ever will verify. By that I mean it’s the ultimate truth as told by a liar, if that makes any sense. The messages and resulting implications are sharp and dull. In other words, they are extremely pointed while at the same time coming across as one giant generalization. It’s a comical tragedy that ends at the beginning. An ephemeral, but everlasting story of love, hate, and nothing in between. The prose is colorful, but meant to be read in a factual, black and white kind of way.

In terms of subject matter, my novel will delve into the real and what that entails; whether existing actually inhibits the process of being. Is an essence possible without a life? Some philosopher may at some point have argued that we all died the day we were born. My fictional biopic will harshly refute this notion that may or may not have ever been drawn. The argument against it will be conducted with a sensible, fact-by-fact approach.

This is a tale that intertwines a young boy’s questioning of his existence, both its meaning and reality, with his very real adventure as he does all he can to earn the $10 necessary to bail his sister out of prison in the early 1940s. The sister was wrongfully sentenced two years prior. You find out why in the sequel. The story itself will encompass various themes and motifs that revolve around life and the living, but also very much centered on death, finality, and all that comes with it. A beginning and end, as read and perceived by a young a child. A young child who may not be alive. At its core, as I said, this novel will tackle the age old question of life and death: are they one and the same?

While I don’t plan on doing the writing (I’m busy), I can tell you the last sentence. It ties up all of the loose ends, but has little to do with the plot. It reads “and at that moment she was a part of the brightest darkness there never was.” And then… the novel begins.

Waiting on you, heavens.