We can all be George Washington

Book Review: Glenn Beck's Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You’ve Never Seen Him

I confess I have mixed feelings about Glenn Beck. Sometimes when I listen to him – for example during his recent interview with Penn Jillette – I say, “Yes! This is what rational discourse sounds like.” Other times, I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. My mixed feelings extend to his written work. I thought Common Sensewas rambling and dull: it failed to deliver the inspiration from Thomas Paine that it promised. In contrast, The Overton Windowwas a hugely entertaining novel with a serious message about how the liberals keep managing to win.

Being George Washingtonfalls into the second category. The book occupies the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. Beck braids history, legend, and imagination into dramatized accounts of incidents from Washington’s life: the French and Indian Wars, Valley Forge, the Constitutional Convention, and so on. These narratives contain lush descriptions of the settings and even tell us Washington's innermost thoughts: the accounts read like a novel. They appear in alternating chapters with short essays that separate the history from the legend – apparently Betsy Ross probably didn’t use her feminine wiles to distract the Hessian Colonel Carl Emilius von Donop on the eve of Washington crossing the Delaware.

The other function of the essay chapters is to draw lessons from the life of the Indispensable Man. The bottom line: We can’t all be indispensable. We can’t all lead an army or start a new nation. But we can all be virtuous, brave, civil, and persistent. We can all defend freedom when it’s under attack – and it is under attack. And if we do that, we will make a difference. In that sense, we can all be George Washington.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about a young engineer who defends freedom when it's under attack. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Front Lines of the Culture Wars...

I was trying to find a good quote about the culture wars. As I slogged through what seemed like the hundredth post-election article with the words conservative despair in the headline, I found this gem in the comments:

Stories are important. Storytellers have a specific type of power. They shape memories and impressions. The victors write history – but anyone can write a story, and those who write the best and most popular stories win the culture wars. Don’t just give it up to them. Fight back. – Jamie W.

As one of the characters in The Fountainhead said, “Do you think I picked the things in my art gallery by their signatures?” I didn’t have to follow the link to know who “Jamie W.” is. Jamie Wilson runs conservativefiction.com and is a senior editor at Liberty Island Magazine. So she knows about storytelling, and she’s right, of course. Before our fellow citizens will vote for liberty, they need to understand it and believe in it – and stories are an effective way to connect with them on a gut level.

But stories can't change hearts and minds if no one reads them. This is especially problematic for writers of conservative and libertarian fiction: they're mostly indie authors who do not have the publicity department of Random House or the sales force of Simon and Schuster to promote their life's work.

With that end in mind, I’m pleased to announce the first issue of my new e-mail newsletter, Never Surrender, will be released on Friday, February 1. The title, of course, is taken from the advice Winston Churchill gave to the British people when the Nazi hordes were consolidating their takeover of France and the Battle of Britain was imminent.

In Never Surrender, I will share the latest from novelists whose characters take responsibility for their own lives and live traditional values; comedians who laugh at the absurdity of political correctness; and filmmakers who use the power of cinema to tell tales of liberty overcoming tyranny, and, along the way, give us a sense that there are things in life that are sacred. Issue 1 will feature capsule reviews of works by Kia Heavey and Christopher Bunn and news from FrackNation, Loren Spivack, and (speak of the devil) Jamie Wilson.

In a shameless effort to build circulation, I’m going to commit marketing. Subscribe to my free newsletter, Never Surrender, by February 28 and automatically be entered in a drawing to win a copy of your choice of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Glenn Beck's The Overton Window.

To begin your free subscription to Never Surrender, and be entered into the drawing, email subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about hospital gowns, freedom, and never surrendering. Check it out on Amazon.com