Some reflections on Gaither Stewart’s absorbing new novel, Lily Pad Roll
By William T. Hathaway, Simulpost with The Greanville Post
Gaither Stewart is a shatterer of myths. In The Trojan Spy, volume one of the Europe Trilogy, he shattered the myth that the USA is fighting terrorism and showed instead how our government works in a symbiotic relationship with the so-called terrorists. Now in Lily Pad Roll, volume two of the trilogy, he shatters the myth that America is invading countries and building foreign bases in order to defend the homeland and secure oil supplies. He shows instead that the deeper motive for this slaughter of hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings and the resulting near-bankruptcy of our country is brutal geopolitics: the desire of our ruling elite to weaken their chief rivals, Russia and China, and to prepare for war with Iran. Stewart’s artistic skills make this case more convincingly than a dozen academic analyses could.
The lily pads of the title are the new US bases now proliferating on the borders of Russia and extending towards China, allowing troops to hop quickly from one to the other in strategies of domination on the Eurasian chessboard.
Some of Stewart’s characters are seeking to expose and stop this aggression, some are determined to extend it by any means necessary, and others are trying just to stay alive in the crossfire. Most of them are deracinated internationals adrift in the New World Order but alienated from it: Cliff, ex-CIA operative who quit because he couldn’t stand the ruthless killing. Haunted by his past, tormented by guilt, he seeks solace with Elizaveta, the painter who can see into others and capture them on canvas but who refuses to reveal herself. Masha, her mother, fragile and vulnerable after decades of trauma. Karl Heinz, who uses his cover as journalist to ferret out and expose military secrets but whose commitment to truth is also a way of escaping his self image as a rich dilettante. Katharina, needy of love but unable to give it. The erotically lush Antonia of the German body and Slavic soul. Günther, the well-connected German businessman who can arrange entry into the secret bases … but at what cost? Ilya, survivor of the NATO terror bombing of Serbia, witness to his country’s dismemberment, whose sense of justice has been tempered into a sword by these geopolitical atrocities. Elmer, MIT dropout turned military electronics specialist whose conscience overcomes his cynicism and turns him into a dangerous whistleblower who must be eliminated. Raymond, agent entrepreneur, freelance spy, driven to take revenge on others for his personal misery. Their lives cross and interweave into a fabric of suspense that is ripped asunder at the end, leaving two of them dead and the world much changed.
The story unfolds primarily in the Balkans, that crossroads of history, and Stewart renders the settings masterfully: Sophia and Belgrade, grand old cities now enduring the crass glitz of the new capitalism that has been hastily thrown over their hewn-stone mansions and communist-concrete highrises, filled with recently impoverished people disoriented from the lost security of socialism, trying to survive imperialist machinations from afar. The plot also takes us to Munich and Berlin, sleek citadels of empire; Moscow, capital of confusion; and Istanbul, the eternal.
If all that wasn’t enough, Sarah Edgar’s cover for the novel is also superb: In a play on Foucault’s panopticon, an all-seeing eye stares out at us from the center of the Pentagon. The image implies there’s no place to hide from the empire. Stewart’s story convinces us, however, that although shattering the empire’s myths can be dangerous, it’s morally necessary and can be achieved through courageous resistance. Lily Pad Roll is a book of hope.
Shattering myths has also been dangerous for Gaither Stewart’s career. The Europe Trilogy was shunned by mainstream publishers and review media because they are propagating the myths Stewart is shattering. The books are published by an independent house specializing in the literature of resistance.
Selections are available at http://tinyurl.com/d4aondc style=”color: #151515;”>.
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William T. Hathaway is an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. His books include A World of Hurt (Rinehart Foundation Award) and Radical Peace: People Refusing War. A selection of his writing is available at www.peacewriter.org.
Rarely do reviews crystallize the essence of a masterfully construed novel that artfully intertwines the threads of reality, political acuity and engrossing fiction. Mr. Hathaway spreads the ambiance of this mufti-layered classic with the the same panache of Mr.
Stewart’s writings. Never have I read a novel that dispels the pseudo historical
versions of past reality with such aplomb and insight that can be transferred, (and often are during the reading of this book) to our time, our different countries, all with the impending reality of what encroaches upon us. As draconian laws slip by the uninformed public, the fate of our land seems destined to go the way of the countries in which Gaithers characters reside. Our sadly seeming antidote to prescient historical truth that our trance-like inability to see dangers that ever increasingly entomb our freedoms with Faustian bargains of trading rights for the cozy embrace of the military, security state, abetted by a compliant press who artfully drops a veil of false reality to the destination these globalist wolves and sycophants employ to erode and dull us to the penalty our careless Faustian bargain will ultimately extract. Since history has been reduced to mindless entertainment, few remember lessons horrifically learned
to say nothing of those who risked or lost their lives to fight with pen and gun in a
war for humanity. As the executive orders and other cryptic attacks on freedoms meant to shield us from repetitions of historic tragedies, few, very few are willing to incur even scurrilous or mocking responses from those who will ignore truth until
mounting an offensive against the destroyers has lost its moment. Stewart is a
enlightened author whose captain of informing our world valiantly and knowing full well the cost to him, renders the only avenue of opposition. Knowledge can dispel the lies,
alert a slumbering public to the shoals ahead and strike a blow against the diverse
forms of tyranny that, like cat’s paws in the fog, ceaselessly advance their goals in the mist.