Allegory

The Second Son Chronicles are — first and foremost — entertaining storytelling. Full stop. And if that’s where readers prefer to stop, then I’m grateful that they’ve enjoyed my books.

We’re taught in literature classes, however, that the author may have more to say than what appears on the surface. For readers who choose to look deeper into the saga, I hope they’ll find an exploration of some of the political and social dynamics of post-World War II America . . . perhaps even of our post-war world in general. Better authors than I have used lenses of the future, fantasy worlds, science fiction, etc., to comment on their observations of what’s happening in the real world. For me, the past was a more comfortable place.

And there is much to explore. The youthful enthusiasm accompanying the prosperity of the 1950’s, the value of education, the rise of business as a political class, health care, sexual orientation, science and religion, the role of government, post-traumatic stress, women’s rights, immigration, wars and conflicts and why they arise, economic inequality, mental health, xenophobia, the emergence of new types of warfare, justice and injustice, experiments in nation building, disease, discoveries, the courage to do what’s right, demagoguery, cultural awareness, security, social responsibility, and much more.

My intent is in no way to be pedantic. What I hope to do is to engender thoughtfulness. We are all individuals, and so we will not always agree. But if we each retreat to our own biases and opinions and fail to exercise intelligent thought and engage in constructive dialog with those who have a different perspective, I fear our world is at risk of regressing to a darker age. Let’s not let that happen.