Normally I write a novel online, except for the final chapters and then publish the complete work in print. In this case, Lynn and I will publish some of our collaborating correspondence and research and developmental concept notes for the setting. The base premise of Night Song of the Nords, is that the last surviving Nord from Reverent Chandler: The Saga of Fend, discovers a woman of his kind—and the race war is therefore back on.
The overarching theme is how does a human race, on an increasingly lethal world, faced with extinction, reclaim its very nature in the face of emasculating forces that remain in place from the previous world order.
Below are some of Lynn's thoughts on this theme of the denatured person. We will post two pieces of the fiction narrative on the sight: Rise of the Nords, a prequel, origins chapter and Tam's Cull, about the father of the most notorious character from Reverent Chandler.
Woman
After being alerted to James LaFond’s writing during the Baltimore Purge of 2015, I was drawn into the archives and later into some of his ongoing fiction projects. I soon realized there is no one quite like Mr. LaFond out there. There are people whose job description is “journalist” who have not the courage to describe one afternoon’s walk in the clear manner in which he has described thousands of journeys and interactions. There are people who call themselves university professors of sociology, none of whom, nor their enslaved researchers, can summarize the lifeways and habits of the varied denizens of Baltimore, their interlocking incentives and physical and spiritual afflictions, the way Mr. LaFond does. As to the status of his fiction, he is the only living person whose fiction I can read, so take that for what it is worth.
The great overarching theme of Mr. LaFond’s work is the exploration of masculinity in all its forms, from the desire to measure oneself in the combat arts, to the gaping hole in families missing fathers, to the dangerous life in neighborhoods dominated by overgrown children, to the mundane tasks of life that must be performed by men, or by machines built by men. So many simple truths have been denied by our society for so long, that once those truths have been revealed, it is difficult to remember what it was like not knowing them. The average man on the street is stronger than 99% of women. Women and children live, literally live and breathe, at the mercy of men, yet not 1 in 100 women you know would believe that, or even be able to understand it, until and unless, it all comes crashing down. I am 37, married, mother of two, possessed of an advanced degree, and formerly employed for a salary in the low six figures. Learning and understanding that I live at the mercy of my husband, and in service of him and our children, has been the most liberating experience of my life. Anxiety is replaced by clarity of purpose, ego is replaced by love, and serving my family replenishes my soul.
Lynn ,
So eloquently, said and written .