State of the Union (SOTU) was written by Douglas Kennedy and published in 2007. This is a novel and not the political theater performed once a year before Congress. (Kevin D. Williamson, a much better writer than me, gives the correct opinion about the political SOTU.)
SOTU, the novel, is told from first person POV. Our protagonist, Hannah, is in college at the beginning. It takes place during the campus radicalism of the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. Her father, John, is a college professor and a father figure to all the counter-culture students in Vermont. Hannah meets and falls in love with her steady, physician husband. She marries young, has a child. They move to an extremely small town in Maine. When her husband leaves to care for his dying father, Hannah’s father, John, encourages a young radical, Tobias, to go hide out with Hannah after he comes under suspicion for harboring two Weather Underground terrorists. The terrorists bombed a building, killing two innocent policemen. Tobias seduces Hannah. They have a two-day affair. Tobias’s contact informs him that the feds are right on his trail. He confesses the truth to Hannah and blackmails her to provide him a ride to Canada. She never tells her husband about the affair.
The second part of the novel takes place thirty years later. Hannah has two children Jeff and Lizzie. Jeff has rejected his parents’, and grandfather’s worldview. He is an Evangelical Christian. Lizzie is bi-polar, though the reader doesn’t discover that until later in the book.
Lizzie gets involved with a married, minor celebrity. When he finally rejects her, she has a manic episode and disappears. Tobias becomes an Evangelical, also of minor celebrity, and writes a tell-all including a chapter of revisionist history devoted to his weekend affair with Hannah. Because of this, Hannah’s husband, Dan discovers the affair. The story of Lizzie’s affair and meltdown, along with Tobias’s book, causes Hannah to become part of the news cycle. Her marriage crumbles. She loses some of her closest friends and, briefly, her employment.
The denouement vindicates Hannah. Tobias’s fictionalized account of their affair is proven false. Jeff’s judging of her mother comes back to shame him. Her husband cheats on her immediately, then comes back to her hat-in-hand. Although feared dead for most of the second part of the book, Lizzie turns up in Vancouver. The book ends with Hannah passing through customs in France ready to enjoy a six-month sabbatical in the countryside.
Just like the political SOTU, the novel SOTU revels in partisanship and division. Stating it flatly, Douglas Kennedy hates Evangelical Christians. I have no issue with an honest critique of churches and the tendencies of those who regularly attend. In fact, I wrote a book about that. To paint them all as superficial, two-dimensional, judgmental, critical, stereotypical Puritans is lazy. He might as well have given them top hats and mustaches to twirl as they tie Hannah down to the train tracks. Of the four Christians in the book, one is an unpopular woman in a book club, Jeff’s wife is a shrew, Jeff is intolerant, Tobias is a liar and hypocrite.
I have to give Kennedy some credit for being consistent. His protagonists are what Red-state voters would think of as elite, east coast, liberals. John is a university Professor. Hannah teaches English at a private high school. Hannah’s mother and best friend are New York Jews. While they are stock characters, Kennedy gives them depth to their characters. He spares little for the Christians.
Tied to Kennedy’s contempt for Christians is the twin disdain for the Republican Party, which means hatred for George W. Bush. I am aware in the 2000s, progressives were terrified that the United States would transform to a theocracy, Handmaid’s Tale dystopia. (I wonder what Kennedy thinks of the new Second Endangerment after Dobbs vs. Jackson Women Health Organization ruling.) He especially obsesses over abortion and the threat of the Pro-Life movement. Jeff and his wife are both active in the Pro-Life movement.
I also have concerns about white evangelicals intertwining with the Republican Party (also covered in my book). I also recoil, correctly, with Tobias’s conversion from 60’s radical to Christian celebrity. In this, the church should be more skeptical of the trustworthiness and motivations of celebrity pastors and parachurch leaders.
My major contention with this book, is that Kennedy relentlessly points out the unyielding rigidity of his ideological opponents without pointing a mirror back at his own characters. At one point, Hannah lectures her son after a holiday meal. Jeff shows up. John initiates a political conversation with Jeff. Jeff does what every sane person would do, first try to change the subject. Then, when that doesn’t work, he gets up and leaves. That’s how I hope 95% of America would react in such a situation when confronted by family members who enjoy starting fights with close family members over the stupidity of politics. Hannah lectures her son for being intolerant towards his grandfather.
I understand that when the Left side of the politic establishment use words like “tolerance” and “unity” that means agreeing unequivocally with what they believe with no room for dissent. As judgmental as Douglas paints Christians, he could apply the same broad brush to his protagonists. Hannah teaches high school English. The one lesson we get to see is when she teaches about Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt. Her first question for her class is who he would have voted for in the last presidential election (2004 Bush versus Kerry). So, Hannah’s tolerance means indoctrinating her students in political thought.
I do not subscribe to the notion that people should become Christians because it makes them better people, or helps their lives. My life has been difficult, at times. I have not been spared from the reality that this fallen planet dishes out to us all. A person believes Christianity because it is true. If it is not true, then it ought to be abandoned.
Douglas almost convinces me that these characters would do better with Jesus, whether he is God, or not. John and Hannah are both unfaithful in their marriages, John habitually so. Their priorities are consistently out of touch (see: ruining holiday dinner above). They start fights for the most nonsensical reasons, communicate horribly with everyone in their orbit.
I don’t fault Lizzie for being mentally ill. Mental illness and chemical imbalances are a scourge, not a character flaw. However, how Hannah deals with her daughter defy rational thought. When Lizzie is involved with a married man, does Hannah strongly encourage, or order, her daughter to end the relationship? No, Hannah arranges to have dinner with her daughter to meet him, much as any parent would want to meet her child’s newest, single(!), love interest. I have to ask, coming from the perspective of a man raised in a Christian home, is Hannah’s decision normal? Is it normal for a parent to treat her child’s married(!) (with kids), love interest as she would as just another boyfriend? Hannah does show up and tell him to treat her daughter gently. Somehow, I see the advice to be totally directed at the wrong person, with the wrong words.
In the end, after Hannah’s world crashes all around her, she is vindicated. For all her poor decisions, everyone, except her father, has to come back to seek absolution. Her son pseudo-apologizes. Her husband wants her to take him back after his own adultery. Her employer wants her back after suspending her. And she gets to flee, head held high, to France for a sabbatical, keeping all those who need her blessing waiting.
Christian literature and media can be lampooned for being sanctified Disney. (Don’t get me started on the movie Facing the Giants.) The ending seems to me like progressive Disney. Everything turns out rosy for Hannah. Her daughter is alive, defying almost all odds regarding vanishing people. She has her dignity and moral high ground.
Douglas also usurps a passage of Scripture to give his summation of the novel. Hannah, her dad, and new stepmom are playing a game called “quotations.” One person says a quote and the other two have to guess where it is from (woo-hoo). Her dad quotes 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My strength is made perfect in weakness.” I hate to break it to Douglas, but if he is going to critique Christians and Christianity, he might want to open a Bible and actually read it. The context is the Apostle Paul is suffering from a thorn in his flesh. He prays three times for Jesus to take it away. Jesus responds, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The first person in this verse is Jesus. It is not a fifty-three-year-old who makes terrible decisions, treats her family terribly, prioritizes politics over said family. If Hannah realized that she has no power/strength on her own, she might be able to surrender. Life may still be challenging for her, as it is for everyone, Christian and atheist alike. But by surrendering, she wouldn’t have to feel like she has to have the strength, alone, to order it back together again.
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