BOOKS: Shattering Myths Can Be Dangerous

Some reflections on Gaither Stewart’s absorbing new novel, Lily Pad Roll

By William T. Hathaway

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.

Lily Pad Roll is a book of hope.

Punto Press, an independent house specializing in the literature of resistance.

Selections are available at http://www.gaitherstewart.com/book-previews/.

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William T. Hathaway is an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. His books includeA World of Hurt (Rinehart Foundation Award) and Radical Peace: People Refusing War. A selection of his writing is available atwww.peacewriter.org.