In the midst of Banned Books Week, President John F. Kennedy's statement that "a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people" is particularly pertinent. And is it just coincidence that the Kennedy presidency seems to be the last one most Americans seemed to trust? After all, Kennedy's "Camelot" was followed by the "credibility gap" of Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra and the run-up to the Iraq War. Distrust of Washington and the government is widespread.
That distrust helps motivate Mike Palecek's Guests of the Nation, a short work that advocates that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were planned by the Bush Administration. The free speech principle summarized so well by Kennedy leads me to countenance Palecek's book even though I don't buy the arguments of the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement. But that admitted predisposition isn't why I don't like it.
Guests of the Nation details the detention and questioning of a man we know only as John by three FBI agents at New York's JFK Airport. John is returning home from "9/11 Truth anniversary events." During the interrogation, John dominates the discussion. He explains to the agents that, among other things, the WTC towers that collapsed did so because explosives were planted in them, the government actually arranged for the hijacked planes to land elsewhere and the passengers killed, that President Bush and others in his administration were fully aware of the plan, and that drones and replicas struck the towers and the Pentagon and crashed in Pennsylvania. These are just some of the elements of various conspiracy theories advanced by the truth movement.
A novel is undeniably a legitimate vehicle to advocate these theories or any other political viewpoint. From a literary standpoint, though, Palecek falls short.
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