The Strength of the Zeitgeist: An Interview with Bob Sommer,
author of Where the Wind Blew

Interview by Cynthia Reeser

 

Bob Sommer's novel, Where the Wind Blew, was published recently by The Wessex Collective, a small press based out of Colorado whose mission involves publishing novels, as their website indicates, "that demonstrate an empathy for human vulnerability and an understanding of how that is important to the larger society." Where the Wind Blew's Peter Howell is a vessel of frailty and vulnerability who has a coming of age during the 1960s spirit of reform that swept like wildfire across America. His experience as part of a terrorist group is one most protesters can't relate to, but is a good example of what can happen when the right to voice one's opinion is taken to extremes. And extremism is sprinkled throughout every known religion and belief system, a message every good citizen living in the age of terrorism should understand.

CR: What motivated you to write Where the Wind Blew?

BS: I can’t say it was one thing, but I was really gripped by the idea of this story and its possibilities. I had read about instances similar to Peter Howell’s. There was a spate of them, it seemed, during the 90s. I actually avoided reading much beyond a headline or a paragraph or two once the idea took hold because I was afraid of being too influenced by them. But I did submerse myself in memoirs and biographies of veterans of the antiwar movement—Jane Alpert, Bill Ayers, Diana Oughton, Jonah Raskin, others. I read everything I could about the era. The subject just sucked me in. It had everything—inner conflicts, layers of dramatic irony, multitudes of fascinating people. Robert Pardun, who was a devoted activist during the 60s and wrote a marvelous memoir entitled Prairie Radical, read a late draft of my manuscript, and I have to admit that I was nervous while he had it. Here was someone who would spot anything false in the book—factual, historical, anything—but he not only said some kind things about Where the Wind Blew, he also mentioned that he personally knew of a couple of instances like Peter Howell’s.

CR: What message would you want readers to come away with after reading your book?

BS: I really don’t think of writing fiction in terms of a “message.” Hemingway once remarked, somewhat wryly, “If you want to send a message, go to Western Union.” My effort was to see and hear and experience the events of the story along with the characters—and, I hope, to let the reader experience them. They all faced difficult choices, and much happened that was beyond their control. As a military parent now, I’ve come to appreciate how many casualties there are in war, not only on the battlefield or even involving death and injury. Susan’s recital was one. Her whole life was affected by the Vietnam War, even though she tried to keep it at arm’s length. And there were awful consequences for Peter’s wife and children. Cherylee, too, thought the war was a distant thing. Also, I certainly felt the resonance of our invasion and occupation of Iraq as I explored the effects of the Vietnam War on these people, from the costume patriotism of people who shroud themselves in the flag to the frightening eagerness of Americans to toss away rights that earlier generations won at very dear costs. The parallels sometimes came in dizzying waves—the exploitation of fear and nationalism as a political tactic; the ruthless destruction of political opponents by the administration; the surveillance and profiling of opposition groups, which the FBI did at the 2004 Democratic convention, to name only one instance. Who could have imagined all this would happen again—and that Americans would not only allow it but even embrace it, some enthusiastically and some through their apathy?

CR: How much in the book draws from your own experience during the 1960s; the camaraderie, the social movements, for instance––is it something that remains with you?

BS: I’m a few years younger than the main characters—Peter, Susan, Simon, and others in that group—but I lived through the tensions of the era; they’re very much a part of me. I was a senior in high school when the Kent State shootings occurred, and I believe that probably marked the beginning of my political awakening. I attended a rally a few days later, and I recall arguing with one of my teachers, who thought the national guardsmen were right to fire on the students. But I wasn’t an activist in college, not as they were. The camaraderie you’re asking about is, I think, sort of a universal thing, which may be why some readers will easily identify with it. I experienced it in various theater groups I belonged to during and after college, and I drew from that. I’ve spent so much time revisiting the sixties in recent years that my kids think I’m living in the past, listening music, reading, talking about it. I began working on Where the Wind Blew in 2000, and the music of Dylan and The Band and CSN and others became the background of their lives for years. I was always combing flea markets and Half-Price Books for old LPs—stuff I didn’t even have when I was young. I stayed away from novels about the era, not that there are many, but I read a lot of histories, as well as newspapers from the 60s and 70s on microfilm. It’s been interesting and fun, but I’ve been eager to rejoin the present for some time.

CR: The theme of identity comes up a lot, about how people change and shed the layers of their former selves. The transformation can sometimes be as dramatic as literally becoming someone else, which is what Peter does. Given this, how fluid would you say identity really is?

BS: I don’t know. That’s a hard question. I’m not convinced people do change entirely. In some ways they just seem to adapt to their circumstances. Peter, for example, somewhat reverts to his earlier behavior; he reacts to this situation much as he did when he was young—he walks away, almost impulsively. But he has none of the necessary tools now—youth, friends, flexibility—and he’s burdened (if that’s the right word) by experience, by caring about people who didn’t exist in his first life, and by being cared about by them. No, burdened isn’t the right word. He’s been reshaped by all of that. I guess, the way I thought about it, as the story evolved, was more along the lines of how we accumulate our past—it’s always with us, always part of us, no matter what changes in our lives.

CR: What do you think people today can learn from the protest movements of the ‘60s?

BS: Courage, persistence, compassion; that some things matter more than shopping and watching American Idol; that the war we’re in now could be ended if enough people cared. It’s stunning to me that we as a country could find ourselves where we are right now after all that happened only thirty years ago. It’s dumbfounding! The people I hung out with back then read books because they liked them; they wanted to have experiences, not watch others have them on TV. My wife and I didn’t even have a TV for years, for many years. But now The Leader, elected twice over literate and thoughtful men—chosen, that is, because people think they’d like to drink beer with him—is probably the least intellectually curious and most unread individual who’s ever lived in the White House. I’d be amazed to learn that he’s read The Federalist Papers or The Age of Reason or the letters of Adams and Jefferson—or even a biography of one of them. He treats the Constitution like yesterday’s newspaper. The irony in all of the accusations of disloyalty and treason that the administration continually levels against its critics is that these are the most patriotic people of all, the ones who want to preserve the country, who respect its laws. But the one thing the administration has been good at is labelling and marginalizing the opposition. Nixon was indeed a crook and would have been impeached if he hadn’t quit first—and today, if the Congress had the courage of its stated convictions there are probably a dozen ways The Leader and his administration could be impeached. The danger we all face now isn’t terrorism—it’s apathy, indifference. Our country faces a great threat from within; democracy itself has been challenged by this administration and its corporate supporters, from its incompentency and cronyism to its signing statements and corruption, and the list goes on. Our planet, too, is in very grave peril. But the administration told everyone to go shopping—and most did, and they still are.

CR: How strong a wind is the zeitgeist; or, in other words, how influential do you think the spirit of the age can be and how attributable to it are your characters’ actions?

BS: That depends on which zeitgeist you mean, I suppose. The story is full of cross-currents. The reactionary spirit of our current age, with its materialism and jingoism and right-wing shock jocks; the cold, seething, desperate side of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years; the rebellious 60s, the reactionary 60s—they all blow through the story. It’s the turmoil of these spirits colliding that took hold of me. Susan and Cherylee were more complex creatures than I imagined. To me, they came to embody that turmoil and the idea that none of these conflicts are as simple as we’d like them to be. Cherylee has a moment of awakening, when she hears from Peter late in the book, in which she realizes how multi-layered the dilemmas were that he faced, then and now. In a world without Peter, without the tragedy in which she found herself, she might have bought into the simplistic arguments of the very radio jock that she came to loathe—not so now, or the FBI, or the whole machinery of the media, which sometimes seems like little more than a high-tech version of a mob. My toughest critic is my wife. I’d rather get trashed in The New York Times Book Review than hear faint praise from her. She reminded me, over the course of writing, and much (much!) rewriting, to have compassion for these characters, these people. Everyone in this book was touched by Peter’s actions, and thus by the war. I think that notion pushed the story forward more than anything else. As I wrote and rewrote, I kept reminding myself to ask how whatever was going on was somehow revealing what these people felt. No matter what’s happening, whatever details, how was it helping the reader—and me—to learn more about them?

CR: You write of Peter that “events just seemed to carry him forward on their current." Given the strong opinions, both for and against today’s war, do you think such a protest movement would be possible in contemporary America?

BS: Funny you should ask, because I’ve been working one piece for The Kansas City Star on that very question. The Iraq War is now over five years old, and activists who are willing to take to the streets are a very small and isolated minority here in Kansas City. Many are veterans of the Vietnam antiwar movement (and some, of the war itself), so that tells you something about the demographic, too. Sixty percent of Americans now say the war was a mistake, but as one of my sources pointed out, people have turned sour not because invading Iraq was the wrong thing to do, but because it’s gone badly. A 71-year-old woman I interviewed—a lively and energetic woman who carries a sign on the street side at Nichols Park in Kansas City every Sunday afternoon—also pointed out that peace activists and opponents of war consistently turn out to be right. They’re better informed than the general public, and just as they were about Vietnam, they were right about Iraq before we invaded.

CR: What would you say to someone who rebuts that if we overthrew the Taliban, and the Afghani people are grateful to Americans for helping them regain their freedom (their words), would it not follow that the war has done some good in the interest of the countries we’re fighting for?

BS: I’m not sure what our goal in Afghanistan really is at this point. Are we going to be there for decades too, as Senator John McCain believes we will in Iraq? The Bush administration essentially abandoned Afghanistan to pursue what we now know from Scott McClellan to be its goal of “coercive democracy” in Iraq. (There’s a phrase that would have George Orwell howling from his grave.) So now we’re back-pedaling by adding brigades to the troop levels already deployed to Afghanistan. The original effort there appeared to be more of a police operation, at first, anyway: go after the 9/11 perpetrators. And it had widespread support. But that job was bungled; the resources were diverted to Iraq; and after we’d essentially suppressed the Taliban once, it has returned with vigor. (And we shouldn’t forget that we helped put the Taliban in power.) American casualties from operations in Afghanistan now exceed 500. Civilian casualties are estimated at over 6,500. These casualties have not endeared us to the Afghan people, nor have incidents like the shooting in March of last year that left 19 civilians dead and 50 injured. An Army commander apologized for the incident at the time, expressing his shame over what happened, yet just last week a Marine Corps general decided that no charges were warranted, though, according to Amnesty International, witnesses say Marines fired indiscriminately at bystanders after their convoy was attacked. Such incidents are not isolated—and I believe they’ll only increase unless the U.S. focuses more of its resources into finding nonmilitary solutions. Otherwise “endless war” such as Orwell depicted in 1984 is likely to become our reality.

 

Purchase a hardbound copy of Where the Wind Blew at Booklink.

See Cynthia Reeser's review of Where the Wind Blew in this issue.

Read Bob Sommer's nonfiction essay, "No, We're Not from Texas" in this issue.

Where the Wind Blew by Bob Sommer
The Wessex Collective, 2008

© 2008 prickofthespindle.com