The Enemy is Us:
Ecology, Science, Heroes, and Villains in the Post-Cold-War World

by David Poyer

My topic today is one that I heard discussed with considerable fervor over the lunch tables in Manhattan on a recent visit. You see, one of my publishers is launching a major line of commercial or popular novels devoted to ecology. And he's not the only one.

He doesn't want something excessively scientific, with footnotes and mathematics. He doesn't necessarily want fine literature. And he's not necessarily concerned about political correctness. What he wants, roughly speaking, is a sort of environmentally conscious commercial fiction. This particular line is called by a new generic name: "ecothrillers." In many circles in New York, they're seen as the successor to the long line of Cold War fiction that has entertained and diverted Americans for the last forty years.

Today I'm going to talk about science, and ecology, and environmentalism; and how we can incorporate these relatively new societal concerns into our fiction. I'll talk a bit about ecology, and how it came to constitute a topic of discourse in commercial fiction. Then, I'm going to do two dissections. Dissections are of course the traditional means of teaching anatomy in medical schools. They show you what is connected to what, and how various muscles and nerves are related, both anatomically and functionally.

The ones I'll do today will not involve scalpels and blood, however. What we will do is take apart my two most recent books, in outline form, to show how the ecological imperative, ecological concerns, and ecological consciousness operates in each.

Before we go any farther, I'm going to pose a question. I don't want you to answer it yet, though. The question will be, how many of you here are concerned about the ecology? And the reason I don't want you to answer yet, is that I want to discuss the concept a little first.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word OECOLOGY was coined in 1873 from the Greek root meaning, interestingly enough, "Household." Today it is accepted to mean that branch of science concerned with the interrelationship of organisms and their environments; and, by extension, the relationship of human beings to the environment they live in.

Ecology proper, then, does not denote or dictate any specific attitude toward the environment or our relationship to it. All it does is study that relationship. Not everyone feels that the earth is in danger. But it's hard to find anyone who will not admit that, at least occasionally, he or she has not felt the encroachment or threat of environmental degradation. We may see it as rising prices, excess garbage, power interruptions, or social strife. We may see it in different ways, and we may not agree on the causes or the ultimate effects. But I believe we all know what the environment is, and I think we all have our own ideas on the degree of threat to it.

My own feeling is that we are all ecologists; and we are all environmentalists. The only difference is a matter of range. Not one of us would be unconcerned if we were five feet from an operating nuclear reactor; or five feet from a toxic waste dump. However, many of us are less concerned if such things exist in the next county, and hardly concerned at all if they're in the next state. While others feel that nuclear reactors have no place at all on earth, and that anyone handling or generating toxic waste should be forced to dine on it.

These are all valid viewpoints and can be defended, both in argument and in fiction. The point to remember is that whatever your political beliefs, whatever your own views on the "green" issues, they can be meaningfully incorporated into your fiction. Now, by that standard: How many of you are ecologists?

Look around you. Those are possible readers for an ecological novel.

The first popular treatments of ecology, in the sense that human beings were threatening to destroy their environment, I think can be traced to the SF/horror novels and movies of the early postwar period, and specifically to the specter of nuclear radiation. Giant ants, giant moths, giant spiders, or conversely shrinking human beings -- these were the first forebears of today's sense that our mastery of science has put us in the position of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Just as Mickey Mouse could no longer control his magical minions, so our own scientists, military men, and industrialists had thrown off all control and were happily leading us all, if not to Armageddon, at least into the Wasteland.

For many years, though, this threat to our existence was submerged by the larger threat posed by the totalitarian countries. Many people who had no love for nuclear weapons or nuclear power were forced to admit their utility in deterring our enemies. But now our enemies have largely disappeared. And now our planet supports over twice as many people as it did in 1945. A figure that is going to double again before the end of the century.

What has this got to do with fiction? Because fiction is one of our prime means of articulating the concerns of an age, of exploring solutions, and finally of reaching consensus. And fiction requires antagonists. It requires struggle. It requires doubt.

Why do we need an external antagonist? T. S. Eliot put it about as succinctly as anyone I've ever heard: "The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately invoked."

So that if we are to involve the reader in suspense and concern for the protagonist, that protagonist must be involved in a struggle against a credible opponent. He or she must be involved in a quest, and that quest must be carried out in the face not only of natural obstacles, but usually in the face of human opponents as well.

What are the requirements for an antagonist? I think they are fourfold:

1. Credible -- must be a real threat
2. Vivid
3. Less good than the hero -- else the hero loses reader sympathy
4. Relates to a concern which the reader has, too.

If you think about the antagonists of not only popular literature, but of classical literature as well, I think you'll find that they fall into certain broad categories. The often seen antagonists or obstacles, in a roughly ascending order of abstraction:

The natural world
The other, the "evil" man/woman
The corporation
The institution -- Army (James Jones, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), The Vatican (Eugene Sue's THE WANDERING JEW), the Mafia (John Gresham's THE FIRM)
The enemy -- Germans, Yankees, Japanese, terrorists; innumerable examples
The ideological enemy -- Nazis, Communists
And finally, the Self.

As I've said before, here and at other venues, I believe that the richer stew one can make of one's novel, the more relish the reader will find in it. And therefore I try to incorporate as many of these antagonists or obstacles as possible. You will never find one of my novels depending on a single antagonist.

Now, this is not to say that such traditional antagonists are passe and can never again be employed. They will be, by me and by others. But what I am saying is, that in the current cusp of history, this watershed -- the age of aquarius -- the post Cold War world -- call it what you will -- but in today's world, such cliched antagonists as the Mafia, Arab terrorists, and Communists seem not only dated but increasingly irrelevant in the face of challenges to our very survival as a species.

But this is not a simple one-for-one swap. If we are all ecologists, then it is also true that we are all anti-ecologists too. Every one of us contributes to the pollution and destruction of the natural environment. Though we may toil in ecologically conscious industries, we still use electricity that is produced in nuclear plants, or even worse, coal-fired ones. We all drive cars, like air conditioning, use paper products, insecticides, and so forth. In the last analysis, we all exhale carbon dioxide. If we are truly honest, we have to admit, in the words of Saint Paul, that "There is none righteous; no, not one."

So we have to steer away from the Scylla that lies on the opposite side: we have to be careful not to make our books into sermons. Sermons tend to get turned down by editors. The reason is that although the converted may buy them, most readers resent being preached to. Especially when -- as I just pointed out -- we all have reason to feel guilty, especially in overconsuming America. Our ecological theme must emerge organically from the action of the book, not be spouted as unconvincing speeches by sanctimonious characters, or even worse, as authorial monologues.

Let me give you a couple of examples, from my own recent work, of the way in which an ecological theme can be interwoven, knitted into, the theme of the work. Listen, as I outline the plots, for the succession of antagonists, and the motivation of the protagonists, and for the points at which the ecological theme is introduced.

WINTER IN THE HEART begins with crusty old W. T. "Racks" HALVORSEN being awakened in his cell early in the morning. Chained by federal marshals, he's taken to the Federal Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Inside HALVORSEN consults briefly with his court-appointed attorney. She advises him to say nothing. He enters the grand jury room, is sworn in, and we find he's to be examined with a view to indictments for toxic waste dumping, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, and federal explosives charges, with state charges to follow on destruction of state property, conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder. Halvorsen decides this is his one chance to get everything out in the open. He says he'll talk, but only if he can tell it his way, without interruptions from the US attorney.

1/ The next morning the action proper begins with a flashback to a winter morning in Hemlock County, where a snowplow driver is clearing a heavy overnight fall. Snow swirls in through his window, which keeps fogging, so he keeps it open. He remembers an open sump to the side of the road. He sees a figure ahead and slows just in time. The man trudges along head down, in oldfashioned clothes. Recognizing him, Fox offers him a ride. HALVORSEN climbs stiffly in. He's walking in to town from distant Mortlock Hollow, where he lives alone in the basement of his once-grand home. He doesn't say much. He's thinking his own thoughts. He notices a dark line under the new snow as the plow tosses it aside in a great wave. They reach town. The driver drops HALVORSEN on the outskirts. He leans out and asks for advice about his wife. The oily stuff smears his face. HALVORSEN feels it too. Gets out his handkerchief slowly and wipes it off. God, it's cold. He stands for a moment forgetting where he was going. The town looks strange. He remembers what it was like when he was young. He feels old, cold, lost. The snow falls. He goes into an antique store to get warm. As he chats with the owner we see the contents of the store. HALVORSEN examines an old oilfield nitro detonator. End this scene and chapter by Racks saying he's going over to Brown Bear.

2/ Shift to PHIL ROMANELLI's point of view. In high school, in class. Lots of people missing due to snow. He has erotic fantasies about Alexandrine Ryun, beside him. He's 17, a virgin, a nerd, and a partial cripple. His teacher's voice cuts through his fantasy. Assignment: do an oral history on someone old, over 70 if possible. After school he's beaten up by two jocks; he's a 'troublemaker.' They warn him to shut up in class or worse will happen.

3/ JAYSINE FARMER's point of view. The setting is the hot, close interior of a cheap hairdressing salon on Pine Street (the Style Shoppe) between the Moose Lodge and a music store. JAYSINE is a beautician specializing in electrolysis. She treats a frightened young woman for stomach hair. A brief narrative section recounts her childhood, suicide of her father after his dairy business failed. There's bad blood between her and the owner of the shop over the income from the electrolysis service. There's something common about JAYSINE but also we like her: she's lonely and vulnerable, but fights back. She has a slight fever and is taking aspirin for it. Shift scene to after work, later that evening. FARMER is waiting at her secondstory window. An expensive car goes around the block, parks out of sight of main street. Now we meet Thunder Oil executive BRAD BOULTON. He just got back from Arizona, where he's setting up a nursing home. FARMER's his mistress. He's rich but he gives her cheap turquoise jewelry. She realizes she's being used, but in man-short Raymondsville he's the best she can do. The end of this chapter shifts point of view briefly to BOULTON, retying his tie outside by the car. Remembers his visits to whores in New York. Prefigure VD, but don't mention it yet. BOULTON's viewpoint: people are scum. He and his wife hate each other but he's a good administrator. Thunder Oil needs him, he turned cash flow around. He sees himself as a free man, an entrepreneur in the Reagan mold. He waves goodnight to JAYSINE while at the same time he thinks, what a hole of a town, a hairdresser is the best I can do.

4/ In the Brown Bear Tavern, HALVORSEN rubs the stuffed bear's muzzle and briefly relives shooting it in Canada before the War. Then goes on into the back and sits down with his cronies. They tell stories about the old times, jokes. Halvorsen reflects on age and time. Shift to ROMANELLI's point of view. Rubbing his bruises, he shoulders his scattered books and sets out on the long walk home. Goes down main street; we see it this time through his eyes. He loathes it and wants to leave town as soon as he can. He recurs to a fantasy of suicide involving his father's revolver. On the way sees Racks coming out of the Brown Bear. Remembers the oral history assignment. He asks HALVORSEN, can he do an interview. Get a picture of ROMANELLI as Racks sees him here. They part with date for sometime that Racks thinks is never, but ROMANELLI thinks is next day.

5/ Little Williamina Boulton's point of view. Alone in big cold room at Cherry Hill. She's five. Just been punished for breaking glass by Ainslee Thunner Boulton, her stepmother. Her nanny, Miss Stern, has gone to have a talk with Ainslee. Inside mind of 5-yr-old girl. Frightened, makes up things to comfort herself. Medicated as hyperactive, but we doubt it. Miss Stern comes back, crying, tells Willie she's been fired. The little girl has peed on the floor while she was alone. Puts Willie to bed. Willie acts as if she doesn't care, but cries herself to sleep.

6/ Next day HALVORSEN wakes up feeling sick. Lies in bed in his cold basement in the woods. He wonders: what the hell is wrong with me? At last he concludes it's just age. Gets up and builds a fire. Doctors himself with herbal tea he picks in the woods. He's totally forgotten about ROMANELLI when the boy shows up for the interview. The boy saw a dead raccoon on the road, not a road-kill, but apparently died of sickness. We see HALVORSEN's basement again through his eyes. They react awkwardly to each other, especially the boy. He has a recorder that he got at a pawn shop and fixed himself. But there's no power in Racks' basement, it's all wood heat and kerosene light; the one outlet in the basement is long dead. So he struggles to write as HALVORSEN, reluctantly, tells the story of his life. Mention McKittrack, mention (prefigure) the later Yaeger stories; Halvorsen mentions him briefly, 'You've heard about Benjamin Yaeger, haven't you?' Note experience shooting wells, his big-game trips, his changed attitude toward hunting, his unstated guilt at causing the fire (when drunk) that burned down his house and killed his wife twenty years before. Phil mentions the dead raccoon; HALVORSEN has seen them too. The old man fades during the interview. At the end he collapses. Phil realizes he's ill, perhaps dying. He gets him back to town by dragging him four miles to the highway on a makeshift travois.

7/ Monday. BOULTON's point of view. Review status of snowfall: really deep, cold now. Hunting season's coming and Hemlock County is gearing up. In his office downtown, BOULTON goes to flip charts and reviews his plans for major reorganization of company, taking it public, during which he will gain control. Then he'll convert refinery to production of new clean-air gasoline. Next he interviews a doctor, V. Chandreshar Patel, to head up the new nursing home. BOULTON confronts him with his record: failure, abortion clinics, Vets Administration scandal, drugs. The doctor buckles, accepts low salary. Then BOULTON outlines how he wants the nursing home run. Use the 10-12 scams for screwing old people out of money then dumping them. A clear picture of BOULTON's sharp business practices. He scratches himself absently at end of chapter.

8/ Same day, Phil at school. He's been frozen out socially. Scene in cafeteria where Alex smiles at him, then, later, talks to him as school lets out. That evening at home we see a depressing scene between his father and mother. His father is a failed, alcoholic cop. He's still employed by the town, as a security guard now, though suspended several times, and his pay is rock bottom. ROMANELLI goes up to his cold attic room. Brief erotic fantasy typical of 17-yr-old boys. He decides at the end of it to ask Alex Ryun for date. He rereads his oral history prior to turning it in. It's pretty good, so he decides on a whim to take it down to the Raymondsville Century office.

9/ Shift scene and viewpoint to JAYSINE at hospital, talking to a woman doctor (Leah Friedman). JAYSINE has secondary syphilis. We share her stunned feeling, the sterile cold feel of the hospital. She leaves, numb. As she does so she passes ROMANELLI in the hall. She doesn't know him yet but we recognize him. She wanders out of hospital, almost hit by car, goes into vacant lot, last we see of her she is lying in snow, snow is covering her.

10/ ROMANELLI has come in to visit the old man. He and HALVORSEN talk. HALVORSEN tells him the long story related to him by Amos McKittrack about Benjamin Yaeger's hunting exploits early in the 1800's. A sense of the wildness and beauty of the land then, also a sense of deja vu as we see the land being raped before; that makes 4 times. (For fur, for timber, for oil, and now.) Then Dr. FRIEDMAN and Alma Pankow, Racks' daughter, arrive. FRIEDMAN explains that the old man got a heavy dose of chemical contaminants -- PCBs, dioxin, more -- from an unknown source. Racks can't imagine from where, he hasn't associated the snowplowing incident with it yet, though the reader will. The doctor explains what the chemicals seem to be, their carcinogenic and mutagenic effects, and also tells a story of an earlier case from delivery of contaminated heating oil elsewhere in the County. She intends to transfer Halvorsen to a nursing home.

11/ FARMER is in a bar drinking and warming up. She's still emotionally confused but the anger's starting to come through. That evening she confronts BOULTON as he blithely comes by to screw her. Numbness gives way to anger as BOULTON tells her the disease is nothing. When she protests he tells her to get lost, he's through with her, she's a stupid little hairdresser with fat thighs. He leaves his overcoat without noticing.

12/ The next day ROMANELLI opens the paper to find two stories in the Century (the local rag). One is his interview with HALVORSEN. The other is about the snowplow driver. He was found way out on Route Six, slumped over in the cab and half frozen. He's in critical condition from PCB poisoning. No one knows how he got it. The article quotes Dr. Friedman too, to the effect that there's some mysterious health hazard here. There's also some white space in the paper, as if some ads have been pulled. He goes to school and asks Ryun for date. She agrees! He's elated. Threatened by football jocks again.

13/ FARMER wakes up hung over. Insecure, she panics, tries to call BOULTON to make up. He won't answer, so she buys new dress, styles hair, drives to Petroleum City to see him. As she waits in his office she thinks kind thoughts about him. But he says, we're through; drop it now, don't tell anyone, or else. Has her thrown out of his office. Shift to his POV as he watches her leave. He's glad to get rid of her. Best for her, he rationalizes. He's worried about the discovery of the dumping. Wants to stop it, but he's in too deep with guys in NJ. Phones them on impulse. While waiting looks for his notebook, can't find it. Can't think where it is . . . They answer. Say, okay, we can stop shipping for a few days, but get it straightened out, friend! His daughter comes in halfway through with her doll.

14/ HALVORSEN, half-recovered, 'escapes' from hospital. He's not going to a nursing home to die. He's mad! Stops to warm up in Brown Bear. Decides to go out to the Thunner estate. He speculates on class structure as his beery pal (Len DeSantis) drives him out in his wreck of a Willys. HALVORSEN is admitted at last to see a crippled old Dan Thunner, millionaire and local oil baron. They knew each other in the woods, in the oilfields, hunted together once. Nice reminiscence here, slightly marred by their disagreement about hunting. Thunner says he doesn't know anything about PCBs. Says he is out of the business, his daughter (AINSLEE) and son in law (BRAD BOULTON) run it now. Racks asks to see BOULTON, who's out; so he sees her. AINSLEE BOULTON is a Joan Collins-type rich bitch. She scorns the old man; warns him, this isn't his business, butt out or he'll be sorry. He's thrown off the property with a further warning.

15/ Phil's date with Alex Ryun. His dad loans him police car for evening. He takes her over state line to drink and dance. It turns into a disaster. Her steady, football star Bubba Detrick, shows up and Alex goes back to him and PHIL gets beaten up again. She really agreed to go out with him to make Detrick jealous, ROMANELLI's the only guy in school stupid enough to take Detrick's girl out. He's left bleeding as they go off murmuring sweet nothings to each other. He thinks coldly, there's only one way he'll never be hurt again.

16/ HALVORSEN is pulling himself up the hill toward PHIL's house to get his dog. Sees a squad car shoot past him, going uphill. PHIL, above him in the house, takes down his father's gun. He's going to end it. He loads the gun and hikes up the hill. Is about to pull trigger when RACKS finds him. The old man asks for his help. RACKS and PHIL, mutually embittered though for different reasons, start to talk. Someone's dumping contaminants in Hemlock County. Who? What can they do about it? They agree to take turns staking out the main cross-country road at night.

17/ FARMER is drunk, depressed, and bitter. Reading articles in Cosmo about how to handle breaking up with married men. She is contemplating how to revenge herself on BOULTON. How? Calling his wife? She picks up the phone. Talks to her but is rebuffed; apparently AINSLEE doesn't care what he does. At last Jaysine, angry, tells her about syphilis. AINSLEE still doesn't seem to care. In fact she hints at payment if she'll testify against BOULTON in divorce. She refuses, still slightly loyal, plus doesn't want town to know. Later that day she goes to work and is told she has been fired. Dr. Friedman called and told Mrs. Pirella JAYSINE has VD. The whole shop hears it, and soon everybody in town will know. Jaysine tears down her diploma and leaves in tears.

18/ BOULTON alone in Thunder office on Sunday with Willie. They're playing a child's game, pulling out blocks from a tower one by one. He's going over situation in his mind, reorganization, worrying about what to do about dumping situation. End scene with him pulling out one block too many; tower falls, child claps hands in glee. Patel arrives. They all drive in BRAD's Jag out to see new nursing home in Beaver Falls. En route, as Willie's asleep, BOULTON explains to Patel how the nursing home scams operate, and tells him his personal philosophy.

19/ It takes two days, but late at night a Thunder Oil truck comes by where PHIL and RACKS have staked out a deserted section of road. Phil follows on his bike and gets a sample, but gets knocked down and almost caught in the rain. Talks his way out of it. They take it to the doctor. HALVORSEN, eating breakfast, muses on what his generation did to the environment, the dumping then, the difference now, if there is one.

20/ Christmas party at The Sands, Thunner estate in town. Nicholas Leiter, an Environmental Protection Agency inspector, is there. Only instead of investigating he's come to Boulton first. Introduced by political crony of the US representative from the district. In a revealing scene they do some political horsetrading. Leiter agrees to ignore violations. Afterward BOULTON argues with his wife. The machinations and payoffs, the schemes are getting too tightly knit; he feels they may topple on him. Goaded by AINSLEE to silence all three people who filed the report. It's clear she holds the whip hand in the relationship.

21/ PHIL and JAYSINE meet in the library; she's looking up VD, he PCBs. Reader gets background here on toxics, effects, criminal involvement. PHIL tells her about catching the dumpers, says they're awaiting the inspector's visit.

22/ HALVORSEN, sitting alone in his basement. His pension check has failed to arrive. He also wonders what's happened to his report to EPA. He hikes over the snowbound hills into town. Calls Thunder Oil office first. His pension from Thunder Oil has been frozen. There's no record of his long service with T.O. Next he calls Leiter at the EPA. HALVORSEN learns that the agency won't prosecute the allegations. The inspector says the sample the three gave him is only residual oil left over from normal cargoes. RACKS then goes to see his daughter. She tells him someone has come by with an offer to put him up free in a new nursing home in Petroleum City. All she has to do is sign commitment papers, saying he's senile. She pleads with him to go. RACKS thus has to make his decision to abandon his noninvolvement if he is ever to get justice and, as important to him, peace again.

23/ FARMER needs to decide whether to turn BOULTON in or to abandon her vengeance and just give in, try to make peace with the powers that be in Raymondsville. She goes to a Christian Science service but leaves as soon as it's over. She doesn't believe anymore. BRAD comes by that night, drunk. She tells him about losing her job. He offers her a job in his nursing homes as nursing assistant. Terms: shut up about their affair, take the position and be quiet. Chapter ends with her refusing: she's not his whore, not a nurse either.

24/ Back in town, ROMANELLI's father beats him for involvement with Halvorsen. PHIL endures it, feeling anger, sorrow for his father, who has been morally ruined. He remembers fishing trip with Joe when PHIL was six. Contrasts image of powerful, all-knowing father then and failed father now.

25/ Thugs dressed as hunters are sent out to burn Racks out and kill him. They're outsiders, from New Jersey by the plates of the car. HALVORSEN stands them off at first with his empty rifle, then they chase him into the woods. He outwits and kills them one by one, finally burning the last two in a pumphouse with crude oil. But he knows there'll be more sent after him. He clears out into the woods.

26/ JAYSINE at her window overlooking main street. Finally calls PHIL and tells him she knows who's behind dumping. PHIL takes her up the hill to where RACKS is hiding out. She gives them the notebook BOULTON left at her place. They find a trucking schedule in it. HALVORSEN realizes that when the Thunder Oil trucks deliver refined gasoline to New Jersey they come back empty. Only they're actually full of deadly contaminants, that are dumped along the roads. HALVORSEN evolves plan to drop a tank truck into the river during a dump by blowing up bridge. PHIL's excited, JAYSINE doubtful, but they agree to work together and try it. They've given up on everyone else.

27/ BOULTON in town, at Club. Dickering with lease owner for access to lands. When he has it he goes outside. Suddenly realizes he's won, the reorganization will go through now, it's a fait accompli. Only possible problem remaining is the three people who reported dumping to EPA. After justifying it to himself, gives order over phone to kill them all.

28/ Racks goes back to his now trashed and partially burned basement. Makes explosives from what he has on hand. He gives PHIL an old Enfield rifle. Meanwhile JAYSINE is in town buying the other materials: fertilizer, sugar, matches, etc. But two men abduct her in her car. PHIL passes them on his way home in the police car, gives chase, almost kills them all, but succeeds in rescuing her. He spends the night in woods with Jaysine; they make love while waiting for morning. PHIL begins to suspect life may be worth living after all.

29/ Decisive scene. That night they plant a charge at a rickety backwoods bridge, and wait. But when the truck comes there are three cars with it. Obviously BOULTON has called in reinforcements from his connections in New Jersey. While they wait JAYSINE has a change of heart, religious experience. When BOULTON arrives she tries to warn him. He won't turn back, hands her over to the thugs. Racks blows the bridge anyway; this is their last chance -- otherwise they'll be hunted down and killed. The blast sends a tank-truck full of poison into the frozen Allegheny River. Two cars are filled with thugs are left on the far side of the stream and Racks and Phil hold them off with rifle fire. The thugs leave but PHIL is killed. But the other car, on their side, is BOULTON's Jaguar. He tries to escape. But RACKS shoots out his tires and he skids off the road, into a deep oil sump like the ones we've seen earlier in the book. His car is sinking, going under in the petroleum muck. HALVORSEN hears BOULTON thumping inside on the roof. RACKS hesitates, but finally rescues him. As he's reviving BOULTON the police come up, called by an unknown woman (Ainslee, the reader knows). The car goes under just as BOULTON regains consciousness, cries out, tries to go in after it. They restrain him, but see as the car disappears the little girl's doll. She was in the back seat.

THE AFTERIMAGE. The next spring, after HALVORSEN gets out of jail. In a conversation with the snowplow driver HALVORSEN and FOX wrap up all the loose ends. HALVORSEN was just released after a year in prison; going back to the hill to rebuild his basement. BOULTON was sentenced to 20-25 years. PHIL was buried as a hero with pallbearers from the football team. JAYSINE got religion and went to Virginia. Ainslee has control of Thunder now, which is expanding and has a hot new product, the low-pollution gasoline.

Now let us begin the dissection. Is it pretty clear here how interwoven the ecological theme is with other, more conventional plot elements such as romance, the struggle against evil people and institutions -- and, most important, the struggle within each person's heart?

I want you to note that each person in the book makes choices between what is personally advantageous, and what is morally right by most people's standards. Or, as Cicero put it: "Every discussion of duty has two parts. One part deals with the question of the supreme good; the other, with the rules that should guide our ordinary lives." Even Boulton, who is pretty clearly cast as the villain, reassures himself that by acting as he does, he keeps The Thunder Corporation in business, thus giving employment to hundreds of people; and, in a wonderful irony, by leasing his trucks to the toxic waste dumping ring, he gains the capital to convert the refinery to produce clean-air gasoline.

Note also how omnipresent the theme is throughout the book. The idea of the rape of the land is planted early on, in Halvorsen's recounting of the history of the county. It has been pillaged again and again, by trappers, lumbermen, oil drillers, and now, by those who use it as a dumping ground.

As Halvorsen puts it: "Was it a judgement? Over and over greedy men had torn fortunes from these blasted hills. They'd laughed at the future. Now it was here."

The dumping of toxic waste is also paralleled by the parallel themes of nursing home scams and venereal disease. Boulton uses Jaysine as a dumping ground, and her infection with syphilis is a direct parallel to his infection of the county with imported poisons. He exploits the helpless aged in the same way he exploits the land. When we let him speak for himself, we find out why:

"Why are we in business? To make money, for our stockholders and ourselves. I don't recognize any other limitations on that than the legal system. You play by any other book, you're handicapping yourself, and a sharper operator will cut you down.
"Now, we got to pay these staff shysters anyway, why not use them to cover our butts? We comply with legal minimum requirements. Except, of course, when they're not enforced."
"And you are saying, in that case, what?"
Brad turned his head. The doctor was passive in his seat, looking down at the empty hollows, packed with fog like pill wadding, that stretched off into the hills. "Don't get sanctimonious on me, Jack. I don't respond well to that."
"Believe me, I had no thought of that, Brad. I just wanted to know if you would back me in any questionable situations with my patients."
"You want to know what I think of your patients? They're a profit opportunity. If we don't take their money somebody else will. I think of them as no different than I think of myself."
"How is that?"
"People are scum. They are, you are, I am. Only we're riding in a Jag while they're pissing in their sheets. We're scum with power and they're scum without. If they were in my place they'd do exactly the same. Now, I hired you with the idea you share that view. Do you or don't you?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"Then we're partners. And in that case yes, I'll back you, a thousand per cent."
Boulton downshifted. The car wound through patches of forest, curving down the long grade that brought Route 49 out of the hills to the Beaver Valley. Trees leaned over them; caught in their branches like Spanish moss, the fog trembled above the polished black glass of the road. Instead of slowing he flipped his lights to amber and held his speed. "No, Vinny, I can't afford to get sentimental. Not now, with things coming up to crunch point. "Maybe it sounds heartless, or coldblooded, what I'm telling you. Well, I've been called that before. And worse. Doesn't bother me a bit. What I'm doing will help, down the line, everybody who lives in this county. It'll bring in money and jobs. You'll see, they'll thank me. That's not why I'm doing it, but that'll be the end result.
"So I'll tell you right now what makes Brad Boulton run. If push comes to shove I'll sell you, I'll sell myself, I'll sacrifice anything to keep Thunder Oil afloat. That's what I'm drawing my pay for and that's what I'm going to do."

We might also point out that we could easily do this book as the mirror image of itself, as an anti-environmental, pro-business novel. This is perfectly acceptable and would be as much an ecological novel as the original. I can imagine WINTER IN THE HEART as it would be rewritten by, say, the early Theodore Dreiser, or by Ayn Rand, or by one of today's conservative writers. Then BOULTON would be the hero, and would be fighting a shadowy group of eco-terrorists engaged in trying to destroy his business.

This too could be an exciting book. But what plot elements would we have to change? I think we would have to eliminate the toxic-waste dumping subplot, even if it was profitable. Why? Simply because it is so nefarious and horrific an activity that it is incompatible with any of our notions of right behavior. We can be fascinated by Hannibal Lector, but we can't accept him as the hero of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. And in point of fact, I once pitched a novel not too far from those lines to a major publisher -- in which a group of eco-terrorists attacked a nuclear power plant, causing a meltdown -- and got a six-figure offer. I haven't signed the contract, but only because I decided I didn't really have time to do the book considering my other projects.

So you CAN do ecological novels, or ecothrillers, from a Republican point of view.

The second novel I'm going to dissect, although not at as great a length, shades a little from mainstream literature into the adventure genre. But, again, it's adventure fiction informed with an newly-acceptable environmental awareness.

Here is the Publisher's Weekly review of LOUISIANA BLUE: "Deep-water diver Tiller Galloway (last seen in BAHAMAS BLUE) returns in a slow-moving but ultimately satisfying thriller centered around oil rigs off the Louisiana coast. Tiller and his friend Shad Aydlett, running from debts and hired gunmen they attracted on their last job, hook up with Deep Tech, a small company hired by Coastal Oil Corp. to perform underwater work on its pipelines. A copter crash that may or may not be an accident offers early warning that there is something crooked about Deep Tech; but revelations and suspicions are kept to a minimum till the very end, when Deep Tech's relation to Coastal becomes all too apparent and Tiller's life is on the line. Tiller is a compelling protagonist, an often unlikeable and self- centered drifter who is the perfect denizen of the undersea world: tough, stubborn, solitary, out of place on land. But the biggest thrills in this well-written and subtly plotted novel come from the way Poyer brings alive the dangerous, claustrophobia-inducing world of deep-sea diving." And the flap copy: (READ)

Now, the admixture of ecological awareness in this novel is rather less than it is in the Hemlock County books. But it's there. It is worked in in two major ways. The first is a character, a defrocked priest named Maillette Ravenel who now runs a charter fishing business out of Venice, Louisiana. Here is what I consider the central message of the book, given in the form of a conversation and an image when Galloway and Ravenel are out fishing.

They dropped back to trolling speed fifteen miles offshore. Tiller watched the sonar. He could make out fish, but he couldn't tell what kind.
Apparently Ravenel could. He put the conventioneers into a reef of tuna. Galloway went down when the salesmen tired. He pulled in two nice blackfin, then handed the rod back.
They started back around eleven, Ravenel saying they'd see what was doing closer inshore, then they'd be in good shape to run for home. By then it was hot, hot, hot, and worse, the wind was from astern; they traveled in a cloud of their own exhaust. Tiller felt sweat running down his ribs as he climbed back up to the flying bridge.
"So, you're an oilfield diver."
"That's right."
"Like it?"
"It's a job. It's not a pretty business."
"Maybe no business is. But oil, down here, seems to be dirtier than most."
"What you mean by that?" Galloway asked him.
The old man mused, "Been that way since they first hit oil in '01, out at the Bayou Nezpique. Used to be whole islands out there would catch on fire. Natural gas seepage, then a bolt of lightning -- shoom." He threw his hands upward. "Funny thing, though -- it's all under Cajun land, but damn if they've made any money out of it. You ever hear of Win or Lose?"
"No."
Ravenel throttled back and punched commands into the pilot. He waved to Jacobs, pointing ahead, then splayed his fingers from his head in a makeshift crown. He came back and perched on a folding captain's chair. "That was Huey Long's little honeypot company, back in the thirties. Long and O.K. Allen, his lapdog governor after him, they sold the oil and gas leases for the state. The leases went to Long's cronies, then to the oil companies, but the cream of the royalties went to something called the Win or Lose Oil Company. Meaning, I guess, that whether anybody else won or lost, Long and Allen still made good. Because they owned it. Selling the state as if it was their own property. The people who lived on it, owned it, got nothing."
Tiller wondered why he'd left the priesthood, but it didn't seem like the kind of thing you asked. He waved toward the platforms. "But it brought in money. That money gets spent here."
"Some of it. But even then it don't seem to help the Cajuns. Look at marsh damage. Every navigation canal, every pipeline ditch you dig through marsh doubles its size every fourteen years. That's where  the shrimp come from. No marshes, no seafood. No seafood, no fishermen. The catch is on the verge of collapse. It's only a matter of time, something pushes it over the edge. Then you'll see real misery in Louisiana."
"The oil's not going to last forever."
"I guess you can look at it that way," said Ravenel. "But what if by then there's no marsh anymore?"
"So what do you do?" Tiller asked him. "You got to make a living."
Ravenel glanced back from the horizon. "I'm not indicting the people who work oil. It feeds their families. Like you say. Just seems, it's like going up a bayou. It forks here, forks there. Every fork you got a choice to make. But it keeps getting narrower. Sooner or later it's too narrow to turn around. You may not like what you find at the end. But by then it's too late."
"I'm not sure what you're saying."
"Neither am I, you know? I used to think it was original sin. That we were all cursed. Then I changed my mind."
"To what?" Galloway bent to hear him above the wind.
"Well, the older I get, the less I can say for sure, you know? I guess that was my problem as a priest. People aren't ever going to be perfect. The animal just don't swim that way. But I'll guarantee you one thing: If everybody was just ten percent better" -- he took his pipe out and pointed it at the sky, the sea, the land, rising now fine off the starboard bow -- "This'd be Paradise. Here and now."
Jacobs shouted behind them: "Kings!"
Tiller watched the bait go over and the kingfish rise in the reddening light of afternoon. Watched them bite and bite. He watched them slapping and writhing in their coffin box, spewing blood and roe over the stern, the ones on top snapping at the hostile air. Still hungry, even as their eyes glazed, and they died.

Now, remember what T.S. Eliot was saying about the "objective correlative?" That's an example, right there at the end: "A set of objects, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately invoked." When we look at those greedy kingfish -- and notice how we refer to Huey Long, whose nickname was -- "The Kingfish" -- the reader understands. You don't need to lecture. Just show the image, and they'll understand.

The second ecological reference in LOUISIANA BLUE is the final disaster, the one Galloway has to decide whether to participate in or oppose:

Shattuck said, "You've probably got some questions. Go ahead, ask them. I want you to get the big picture, because once you do, I have an offer for you. Okay? Over to you."
Tiller swallowed. He felt disoriented. The sun was too bright. But it sounded like this was his only chance. He cleared his throat of the oily taste, spat. "Okay. For starters. You set this all up. The ship. The wreck. Bender disposing of us. You set up a major oil spill. Why?"
Shattuck sucked his lip. Finally he said, "You've figured out a lot on your own, haven't you? Okay. Here it is.
"Pandora South was expensive to develop. Real expensive. And, turned out there was oil here. But not as much as the geologists thought. I was in major trouble. Coastal almost went under. But then I found some angels to help out."
Galloway remembered another glaring hot day, the taste of jambalaya and the sound of Cajun music. He remembered the scream of jets coming in to a nearby airport, a black Mercedes with diplomatic plates, a glimpse through an open door . . . He said, "Arab angels."
Shattuck frowned, then nodded. "Uh -- yeah. You know, I have no idea how you knew that. But you're right. Arab angels."
"But oil prices are up."
"That's right, they're up, and I was pumping as fast as I could."
Tiller remembered Hannah West's explanation of field depletion. "Too fast, actually."
"Sure, that's why everything looked so busy. Unfortunately it's too late to help. Coastal's already gone. Raided, leveraged out, every rig and wrench mortgaged. The company's a shell."
"Okay, but a spill -- how's that gonna save it?"
"It won't."
"So what's the point?"
Shattuck said patiently, "The point is, what's going to happen to the competition."
"The competition?"
"The other offshore domestic producers. Amerada Hess, Marathon, Chevron, Conoco, Mobil. What happens to them when a million barrels of oil comes ashore on the Gulf Coast? The papers, TV won't leave the government any choice. First thing, they'll shut every rig in the Gulf down for inspection."
"So what? Then they come back on -- "
"No. They don't 'come back on.' Shut down production, slap on more regulations after the lean years they've already had -- a lot of these rigs are going to shut down. You figured out who was financing me. Take it from there. Who wins then?"
He saw it then, with dawning wonder. Saw how big it really was. And yet, how inevitable that somebody would try it, one day. He cleared his throat again. "The Arabs."
"Exactly. They gain five or six more points market share. How much is that worth? Try five hundred billion, over ten years. That's big league, Galloway. That's how the oil game's played."
"Okay, I got that. What about Todds? What was in the briefcase?"
"Tape recordings. Wiretapped conversations between me and my principals. Justice Department turned them over to MMS to try to figure out what was going on."
"They didn't know?"
"They're not exactly eager to investigate the oil industry, Galloway. Politicians aren't too keen digging for dirt where their campaign contributions come from." Shattuck looked around carefully again. Galloway flicked his eyes around the horizon too, desperately hoping for a boat, a witness; but except for the Davis, rolling hove to a few hundred yards off, the blue circle around them was void.
"Well?"
"I don't think we're on the same side, Shattuck."
"You haven't heard my offer yet."
"Well, that's true." He licked his lips. It was hard, to make it back to the light, then have it all snatched away. "What're you offering?"

This passage -- along with outlining the basic plot of the book, that a corrupt oil company executive is willing to cause a major ecological disaster, for cash -- points out that our protagonist is not exactly pure of heart. Because in point of fact, Tiller is tempted. And this again underlines that we have to comply with the traditional requirement of fiction that the hero be not entirely admirable, and the villain not be entirely evil. As we ourselves are. Do you remember? As we ourselves are -- in our own relation to the wonderfully complex, fragile, and interrelated universe that bore us and in which we live -- "There is none righteous, no, not one." We are adrift in a world beyond our simple minds, dazzled and maddened by a bewildering choice of crimes, acts of mercy, of pleasure, of choices, choices, choices.

That brings me to one other matter that I know is going to be floating around in a lot of minds today. That is, how can I pose as an ecological expert? You may not know anything about toxic waste dumping, oil spills, nuclear meltdowns, overpopulation, epidemic diseases, cloning dinosaurs. Should you just stick with historical romance?

The answer, I think, is that each of us is far more capable of learning than we think. I knew nothing about toxic waste dumping when I started to research WINTER IN THE HEART. I knew nothing about bond markets, catalytic cracking, teen suicide, or nursing home ripoffs either. But that's the great thing about a library. Remember libraries? Remember friends? Remember tape recorders and interviews? For LOUISIANA BLUE I interviewed four divers, a salesman for a helicopter company, a union organizer, and a physician who specialized in hyperbaric diseases. I did two weeks of research on the oil industry and oil drilling, and I went to work.

It really doesn't take a great deal of detailed knowledge to use an ecological or environmental topic in a novel. In most cases, if you get too detailed or too technical, your editor will move swiftly to rein you in. My degrees are in engineering and economics, and I often get in trouble just for that reason. Fortunately, Lenore keeps me honest. She is ruthless about pointing out where I become impenetrable.

What, then, can we conclude from this brief review and dissection of the role of the ecology in contemporary fiction? I think, four points:

1. Ecological concern and awareness is more widespread now than ever before in history. Americans now accept that the human race is in danger from itself, and are willing to consider work based on that understanding not as science fiction, but as immediately relevant to their own concerns.

2. In response to this, a new genre of fiction, that of the ecological thriller, is now coming into being.

3. A knowledge of basic science and ecology, or at least a willingness to learn, can enrich other related forms of fiction with contemporary relevance and increased salability.

4. To incorporate ecological awareness successfully, a work must not approach it preachifyingly or pedantically, but by incorporating ecological awareness seamlessly within the work, ALONG WITH all the traditional values of fiction -- characterization, plot, style, and all the rest.

And finally: The incorporation of ecology into popular literature opens for us an immense and challenging vista, glittering with opportunity. Dozens of careers are going to be built. Will yours be one of them?
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David Poyer is possibly the best known writer of American sea fiction alive today.  His most recent book is THAT ANVIL OF OUR SOULS (Simon & Schuster, July 2005).  Check out his work and career advice at the Home Page location below.
 

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