Our American King

by David Lozell Martin

Book Overview

When America fell, she fell hard. Now chaos and calamity fill the vacuum left by a collapsing federal government. The strong and the armed prey on the law-abiding. Only the wealthiest Americans, who have bought up and seized every available commodity, get by unscathed. Protected by the United States Army and their own hired guards, the rich have made their deals. But no one is making deals on behalf of the Americans who have-not. John and Mary, a...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743267311
• ISBN13: 9780743267311
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Inventive and Entertaining

The first thing that I have to say is that this book was a superior read to Cormac McCarty's _The Road_. I did not not know that this book was a second in a series, but I will definitely read the first one now. The book opens after the "calamity" and most people are fighting for their lives, if they've survived the event, the patagonians, and haven't starved. The story is told from the point of view of Mary, a Lakota woman, who is married to John. John is the keeper of historical information and other endless facts that proves to be helpful, if not instrumental in the establishment of the American King's ascendancy from entertainer to leader. We see from this story that the super rich are protected by the military (but not the Marine Corp--hoorah) or are protected by quasi-military on islands, ranches or other enclaves. These super rich have hoarded food and other needed items for their survival, but everyone else is truly left to their own devices and mayhem has ensued. People are even resorting to cannibalism (just like in CM's _The Road_.) The book's commentary on elitism, consumerism, right leaning politics, warfare, and even Canadians is interesting and at times hilarious. However, the depiction of Canadians as drunk, seal smelling, American haters who are willing to kill women and children was a bit over the top, though. Overall, this was a well-crafted, inventive book. I'll read more of this author's work. I do think that sections of this book would be useful in a political science or history classroom.

What Happens when Government Can't Cope?

I picked up Our American King on a whim - I didn't realize it was a sequel. And you don't need to have read FACING RUSHMORE to understand what's going on here. I loved the flashback style narrative of the book. You hear one of the main characters' version of the events of "the calamity" as it is called. It appears Mary is talking to a group of reporters years after the events. Because of this, there is a lot of filling in of details and a very personal tone in how the story is told. Time is very fluid, just as if you were hearing someone recount a chunk of time in their lives. It was very effective. Without giving too much away, I thought the first 25 chapters were very strong; they cover a little of how America fell, the establishment of the kingdom, and how it grew. Mary talks in great detail of somethings to help put some perspective on history, something that she feels the group she's talking to probably don't know. Mary relates the desperation that people felt after months of little food and no government support. How does it feel to starve for days? How do people relate to each other? When a leader arises, how do people react to him/her? The resolution of the book (last two chapters) while quick, also worked well. Instead of going into the minutia of the events, Mary talks to the major points that were covered in the history books and puts her own little interjections here and there. However, my issues with the book are in the middle 12 chapters. Some of it is very formulaic. It gets repetitious and you can see where it is going. Does power corrupt? Take a guess - you can't get all of your conflicts from the Canadians. The other issue I have is the obvious political leanings of the author - the anti-riot vehicles used for crowd control that confronts the kingdom are called RATs - Rumsfeld Antipersonnel Trucks. They easily kill any rioters in a number of ways without posing a moral issue for those who drive them. The vehicle I'm fine with. I'm not a huge Rumsfeld fan. But the blatancy of combining the two to make a point was distracting. I'm sure some will find it funny, and that's personal taste. All in all, a very good book. As other reviewers have said, it does make you think of where our society is and where it may be going. Give it a look.

Entertaining & Provocative

David Martin's newest novel, OUR AMERICAN KING, is a sequel to his last book FACING RUSHMORE. RUSHMORE is about the events leading up to a calamity that dismantles the United States. OUR AMERICAN KING shows the aftermath of such a calamity. While readers could enjoy KING without having read the previous novel, they would get the brief references here to the events in RUSHMORE (such as the blackened Gateway Arch). In OUR AMERICAN KING, Martin once again blends poetic imagery (the "first battle" scene), humor (all those Canadian jokes), & gore (more decapitations) with a poignant message about contemporary American society.

What If the Rich Never Stop Getting Richer?

Over a century ago, back in the original Gilded Age, Americans regularly sought out novelists for wisdom on inequality. In books like Looking Backward, a 1888 novel that imagined an America gone egalitarian, our forebears found the inspiration they needed to challenge robber baron fortune and power. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward's frail New England author, revolved his story around an affluent Bostonian who slips off to sleep in 1887 and awakes in the year 2000 to discover an America that had been totally transformed. No one lacks an adequate income. No grand stashes of wealth allow some to dominate over others. An equal America. Not, in short, our actual America today. Not our America tomorrow either, suggests David Lozell Martin in his remarkable Our American King. No one will ever will ever confuse Martin, a former open-hearth furnace steelworker in Southern Illinois, for a frail New Englander. And no one will ever confuse the future America that Martin imagines with the equal America Edward Bellamy envisioned. In Martin's post-apocalyptic America, set in our near future, the super-rich play golf in fortified gated communities while, outside the walls, packs of machete-wielding adolescents in wedding gowns -- "with no more than curiosity showing on their young faces" -- slice off the arms of starving suburban matrons. In other words, a nightmare America. But with this nightmare the 61-year-old Martin may have given us a Looking Backward for our time, a novel that forces us to confront the inequality that so distorts our lives.

A cautionary tale as civilization breaks down....

The title, OUR AMERICAN KING, conjures up a slew of provocative scenarios. Has David Lozell Martin penned a slashing send-up of the current occupant of the White House? Has he prepared a fictive but feasible and sober examination of how unchecked imperial protocols might alter our American presidency? Not really. OUR AMERICAN KING tells the story of "the calamity:" Sometime in the near future the meager remaining reserves of oil and gas and every other commodity are bought up or outright seized and placed in secure locations by and accessible only to governments and the mega-mega rich. This elitist stockpiling and withdrawal tips civilization into chaos and, in the U.S. alone, starvation and mass panic and violence kill off at least half the total population. Mary, of Lakota Indian heritage, tells her personal history of this catastrophe. She and her husband, John, are thin as rails, but, by hoarding nothing, have avoided being hacked to death by punk marauders they call "the Patagonians." John decides they must make the trek to nearby Washington D.C. where, he eerily predicts, they will find a man who can lead the unwashed, suffering masses. In front of the abandoned White House (the faceless government is regrouping in shelters and bases far removed), John and Mary join a crowd around a charismatic populist who is hanging the corpses of mid-level bureaucrats upside down from the White House fence. This man calls himself Tazza, and he's set up headquarters in the Executive Office Building next to the White House. He is an extraordinary orator who uses his talent to inspire, support, and lift up the people. They, in turn, adore him and pledge themselves to him. [Comparisons to strongmen in real history are surely inevitable....] John, an intelligent man of letters with a gift for strategizing and cobbling speeches from famous old ones, becomes pied piper Tazza's kingmaker. And so begins the ambiguous but definitely blood-soaked reign of Tazza, whom, not unexpectedly, absolute power corrupts. Mary, meanwhile, is not a mere follower. She is destined to play a pivotal role as the mother of a child she never expected to conceive. Will she be the mother not only of a child but also of salvation from tyranny and oppression? Mary tells her story from the relative comfort of fifty years in the future, so we know from the start that she survives the calamity and its turbulent wake. This storytelling choice tamps the suspense somewhat. Mary's narration also narrows the ability of the author to abide by the advice to writers to show, not tell. When Mary isn't a witness, she tends, naturally, to provide less detail. And the last hasty, almost careless, chapters suggest that Martin tired of writing this book. Suddenly, Mary is in a rush to cross the finish line, and that is regrettable because a more thorough scrutiny of certain themes and events would have enhanced the novel. OUR AMERICAN KING is an unapologetic, yet wry, political commentary, tak