Lee Child

Fantasyland: Kurt Andersen

America has always had a deep thread of fantasy running through its fabric, starting with religion, according to Kurt Andersen in his well-researched and fascinating book, “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History.”

But the crux of the nationwide 21st century “Fantasyland” occurred in the 1960s, Andersen claims, calling the decade “The Big Bang” of what created the myths – both mutual and politically tribal – by which we live today.

America’s modern fantasies are both small and large, intimate and wide-ranging, according to Andersen. “Fantasyland” covers everything from superhero movies to politics to the denial of science to acceptance of delusions regarding crimes and conspiracies. Mostly, in Andersen’s hands, fantasy is anything and everything we do individually and as Americans to delude ourselves.

Andersen opens with the movement of Protestants – the Puritans and Pilgrims – to the New World and splitting into different religious sects once here, as well as the fatal delusion of the Salem witch hunts. Readers should know that Andersen views religion as the original sin of fantasy in America.

But he moves onto the get-rich-quick dreams of gold fever and treasure seekers and the creation of new religions, the fantasy myth of the West and settling the frontier, the denouncement of science, the creation of Hollywood, suburbia, DisneyLand, ever pushing to the “Big Bang” of the 1960s with hippies, intellectuals, Christians, conspiracies, etc.

Andersen writes of his “Fantasyland Big Bang” theory that he had an epiphany while speaking to a group of aging members of the progressive Woodstock generation. The same ideals that fueled the left in the 1960s fired up the right. If the hippie mantra “Believe the dream, mistrust authority, do your own thing, find your own truth” was good enough for the left, it was also good for the right.

Allowing the entire nation to adhere to the claim: “What I believe is true because I want and feel it to be true.” To paraphrase Andersen: it is individualism transformed into rampant self-centeredness.

He traces our current divisiveness back to the 1960s and argues the right has clung to the 1960s ideal of “do your own thing” more than the left.

“Fantasyland” was published in 2017, early into the presidency of Donald Trump, prior to the conversations about choosing pronouns, etc. How Andersen would fit more recent developments and events into his “Fantasyland” would be interesting though readers can and will draw their own conclusions.

“Fantasyland” deserves a place on shelves with Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and Jill Lepore’s “These Truths: A History of the United States.”

Personal: Lee Child

Author Lee Child teeters toward doing something different with Jack Reacher then literally shoots the idea in the head.

Reacher regularly partners with women in the book series. Almost every adventure, he works with a woman who is law-enforcement or military or in trouble or on the run, etc. Some of the women remain partners while also becoming Reacher’s love interest – another one-book stand, as opposed to a one-night stand, because after the adventure in each book, Reacher moves on.

But briefly in “Personal,” Child tosses out the possibility that Reacher will work with a group of men whose skill sets compare to his. Then in a matter of a few pages, Child kills off one of these men. Another one of the men makes later appearances but Reacher spends the majority of the book teamed with a young female State Department analyst who reminds him of a young military officer who came to a tragic end back in Reacher’s days as an Army military police commander.

Here, even though he’s been retired for several years, Reacher is tapped to help solve the mystery of who attempted to assassinate the French president. U.S. officials worry the attempt was a trial run to assassinate the American president. One of the suspects is a rogue Army sniper whom Reacher had arrested years earlier; recently released, the former sniper has vanished.

“Personal” is a quick, enjoyable read. A perfect complement to anyone watching the related “Reacher” series on Amazon Prime.

Reacher’s feelings to protect the analyst puts a small spin on the character’s usual relationships during his adventures but casting him as an ally in a cadre of other talented male investigators may have been interesting.