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"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
                                          -- Samuel Johnson

This is one crazy, weirded-out drug-dream of a book. I enjoyed it enormously. How to describe it, though...Heck knows. I'm not even sure it quite classifies as a RevWar novel, even though it is set during the American Revolution and it is undeniably about revolution. On some levels, it is the most accurate account of that era I've yet discovered in fiction. (Certainly the best depiction of the motivations of the Founding Fathers.) In other ways, it's so surreal that it might be more accurate to describe it as a mixture of philosophy and dark fantasy rather than historical fiction. But then, what can one expect from a tale which is narrated by a ghost to a dying man, during the moment it takes the latter to draw his final three breaths of life?

The dying man is George Washington, and the ghost is one John Lawrence, very loosely based, so the author attests, on John Laurens. The story is the tale of John's discovery of the process of social upheaval cum grass-roots revolution, and his failure to grasp the essential concept until it's almost too late. On that level the book is less concerned with the war between Britain and its colonies, as it states itself, than with social revolution as an abstract concept. The war is sometimes an opportunity for change, sometimes a distraction from it, and ultimately irrelevant to it.

There's a distant echo of the beating of Asian butterfly wings here. Maybe a whisper of the true, secret Leninist/Marxist soul of the Revolution. Or not. Or something else along those lines. You'll have to decide for yourself. Personally, since that theme finds no echoing chord with me -- I'm thoroughly a fan of evolution not revolution -- I fairly much skimmed over it. I never even arrived at a definitive conclusion on how many of the events which support that layer of the story were supposed to be objectively real (within the context of the book) and how many were a pure product of John's ghostly imagination and memories. I'm dead certain that the book's nominal heroine, Deborah Simpson, falls into the latter category. No woman of mere flesh and blood could possibly have so many dei ex machina up her homespun sleeves; only the preternatural (and busty) personification of an idea could manage it. And after all, when John commits suicide by throwing himself deliberately into the path of British gunfire -- no spoiler since it is mentioned on page 8, though people may argue over whether it reflects the action of the real John Laurens -- he describes the experience as "my liberation into the life of the imagination." (p309) The themes of dreams and imagination keep surfacing, so much a part of the whole structure that they render the question of real vs unreal completely pointless.

All that burgeoning strangeness takes place against the more straightforward backdrop of John's adventures and Tom Jones-esque misadventures through youth and the years of the war. My enjoyment of the novel lies firmly in this layer.

On the "young man abroad" level, the tale is cynical, bawdy, iconoclastic and sometimes as laugh-out-loud amusing as the cover blurb promises. Even without its underlying message, this would not be your typical RevWar novel. Instead it's one where you can turn the page to start a new chapter, and be greeted by an immortal sentence such as, "She had big tits and she wanted me from the moment she laid eyes on me." (p161. He is, by the way, talking about the wife of Sir Thomas Gage, the infamous and yes/no/maybe traitorous Margaret, not Deborah.) Or find yourself rolling on the floor over the introduction of George Washington. (Not a common occurrence, you have to admit.) Somebody should have let Mr. Lussier in on the secret that humor is simply not allowed within five hundred yards of the weighty topic of the Revolution. As a reader, I'm thoroughly glad that nobody did. John's thorny path to discovering the essential difference between living and making History -- i.e. the larger-than-life personification of events that is invented after the fact -- is a delight. Though perhaps I should include a warning that it does at times get a little more earthy than is typical for this genre.

As usual, just about everything the author says about Ban is dead wrong, in concept and in detail, from his rank to his mission. (In this world some miscellaneous "Major" Tarleton is busily ravaging the entire South singlehandedly in the customary mad dogs and Englishmen fashion. And no, I don't think Lussier was playing rank-lawyer with provincial-vs-regular orders of precedence.) But why quibble over one paragraph of stupid damned nonsense in the midst of so much fun and silly nonsense?

No, actually, I do have a quibble with it: I find myself wishing that instead of rattling off a brief list of Ban's legendary faults Lussier had chosen to turn him on the spit of his clever if venomous satire. It would've been all wrong, but I bet it would've also been danged funny. His tar-and-feathering of John André was certainly both wrong and funny. To say that Lussier perceives John as a tad Artistically Overwrought is an understatement. And the habit of calling him "Captain Major John André" is brilliant!

Anyway, given how very much I enjoyed seeing far worse things done to a long list of usually Sacred Cows, I cannot find cause for complaint. Everybody gets their lumps here. The only real difference is that, as usual, Lussier did more research on the rebels than he did on the Brits. But for once that put the disadvantage with the rebels, since a far larger chunk of the things he satires on their side is actually true.

It's a book worth trying. Some people will be offended by it. Some will find it deeply profound. Some, like me, will simply wish that its wit and especially its irreverence would rub off on the rest of the genre. It might at least get 'em started in the right direction.

[This is the second book I've put up in as many months for which I owe someone an apology. This book was first mentioned to me in an email a couple or three years ago, but I can't find my note on who sent it along.]