… you can’t take Newdoom out of the man.
Activist/architect/gadfly/former Village 14’er Anatol Zukerman moved away from Newton about 2 1/2 years ago. The setting of his book “The City of Newdoom” has a very familiar ring to it though.
I’m not sure if it was “The Newdoom North High School project that grew from $40 to $200 million”, or the endless plans for “the reconstruction of Nincom St”, or the “Rampart Avenue Landfill”, or maybe the “Newdoom Center Task Force”, or the local newspaper – the Red Tabby, but something about the story seemed vaguely familiar.
When the dead body of a city councilor is found in the “Hall of Freedom”, there are no shortage of suspects for the murder – everyone from the mayor, to a young community activist, to a local developer, to a “reputable intellectual and Russian immigrant”, to a “wealthy investor and mayoral candidate”, and the mayor’s secretary.
I’m guessing that folks who’ve lived around here longer than me will find lots more familiar details and characters throughout the broad satire.
Anatol moved from Newton to Plymouth and he’s apparently settling into his new home – also in the book is a play called “Pilgrims and Indians” set in Plymouth.
Sounds fantastic. Can’t wait for the Netflix series.
It really was Newton’s loss the day Anatol decided to move. He’s a visionary architect, brilliant artist, and now it appears successful author as well.
And you clearly made an impression on Anatol too Mike. I just started the book but on page 13 we’re introduced to a “Rich Rabbitt. a wealthy investor and mayoral candidate who’d inherited money from his family” and compared Newton’s 24 member board to “coyotes.”
“Coyotes were Rabbitt’s second target — he proposed to eliminate them within the city limits.” Oh and he wore Armani, flowery pants and designer sneakers
For those who weren’t active at the time, Mike Striar’s platform to kill coyotes as well as his designer clothes — flowery shirts, not pants, as I recall — all received considerable attention during his campaign to unseat Mayor David Cohen….or as he’s called in Anatol’s book “Mayor David Garment,” who is known for his “fancy consultants….juvenile conflict with the firefighters, his mismanagement of the Newdoom North High School project…” etc. etc.
I’m flattered to have a character based on me, [albeit quite loosely–lol].
Spoiler alert… I hear there’s a sequel with a surprise ending.
(SPOILER ALERT) Actually Rich Rabbitt you may not be so flattered to read how this one ends.
“The City of Newdoom” is a collective portrait of the wealthy America, energetic, corrupt, oversexed and armed to the teeth. I enjoyed writing the book, but don’t think satire can change anything.
@Greg: Socrates satirized democratic Athenian society but at the end of his life Greek democracy was supplanted by the dictatorship of Thirty Tyrants which was much worse than Athenian hypocrisy. Socrates committed suicide.
Nikolai Gogol wrote brilliant satire on Russian society but Russia grew increasingly dictatorial and ended with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Gogol himself became deeply depressed at the end of his life, burned the second part of “The Dead Souls”, refused to take food and died in great pain.
H. L. Menken satirized the American politics and journalism but both became increasingly more hypocritical and developed the much despised Political Correctness which turned American democracy into plutocracy.
Even though I promise to write a new chapter in “The City of Newdoom” called “Crack Port”.