Rodger Recommends: Authors Who Understand Empathy

Why do some books creep into your thoughts months or years after you read them? Most thrillers bring us great fun for the hours it takes to read them. Great ones often are finished way too soon. But only a handful stick with us.

I find myself drawn to authors who create not only strong and decisive protagonists, but even more to those who tell me who they are. What makes the antagonists tick; why do they do really bad things. My friend Bob Dugoni is a master, especially in books like his Charles Jenkins trilogy. Another friend, Terrence McCauley’s westerns take a reader into a real town full of real people, not caricatures. I remember characters from Steve Berry stories I read long ago. Incidents, including the characters, from the master John Le Carré try to slip into my books.

Thinking of what makes these stories memorable, I arrive at one thought: these writers understand EMPATHY as do the characters they create. Plato offered, “The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.”

One of the most interesting characters in the sequel to The Eel And The Angel, (due out in October) is a young man that I, as the author, have empathy for even as he facilitates attacks on America that kill hundreds. When the book comes out, please share with me your thoughts on Farid.

My recommendation: go back to some of those books that really stick with you and read them again. We live in a world where we have substituted Sympathy for EMPATHY. Sympathy, “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune.” Empathy, “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” leads us to share in and personally try to help others in need, while sympathy is all about making our own sorrow go away. Awakening the empathy in each of us is a duty of an author, at least in some books.

Rodger’s Two Cents: Being Right

In my newest book, due out Fall, 2023, I explore the damage that can happen when a person or group knows they are right; that what they believe, is the absolute truth. Those who disagree are stupid, ignorant or worse, irrelevant. Conflict becomes inevitable. The story, set in France, England, The Republic of Georgia, Iran and across the USA, is driven by the need to right a wrong.

Whether you call it a feud, a vendetta, historical correction, or something else, the practice and the beliefs behind it are among the most destructive in history. Hitler was right, he was righting the wrongs that ended WWI. Putin justifies his actions in Ukraine by explaining that Ukraine should never have become independent. (That independence was granted by a failed Russian government, directed by the West.) In the Middle East the Suni-Shite split is centuries old, both sides still arguing over who rightfully was the religious heir to Mohamed. For centuries, the Catholic-Protestant schism over who is the rightful leader of Christianity divided Europe and is still playing out in Ireland.

In the USA, the divides have become chasms. Watching the negotiations over the debt-ceiling issue was an illuminating example of that. On one side are people who truly believe that the seven articles of the Constitution as amended twenty-seven times is a blueprint for a successful America. On the other side are people who believe that inequity, injustice, and financial disparity prove that old white men, (many of them slaveholders) created a foundational document that is out of date. The argument is technically over debt, but the basis of the argument is that about 20% of the nation demands we abandon the old ways while 20% on the other end of the political spectrum are so sensitized by change that they would invade the capital to halt what they see as the erosion of the society.

In my next book, a tiny group of people who are “right,” work to create conflict hostilities between the US and Iran; a nuclear war; a conflict to right injustices of both sides against that group. Today in the US, we are allowing our grievances to create political war, where any give and take is perceived as weakness. I’m a strong constitutionalist, and truly believe that the problems in our nation are not driven by the articles of the Constitution, but rather by the fact that we have drifted from the model it gave us. Within that document, we pay too little attention to two amendments. Amendment I guarantees free speech. Amendment IX is just as important. It reads, “The enumeration of the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Again, we need to embrace all of the rights of the people, not just those called out, and learn to discuss them rather than debate them.

One thing about the Constitution, above all others that needs to be remembered. The document’s underlying principle is that Liberty is our most important right. Free and independent people are not necessarily all the same, but we are free to strive for any status. Liberty virtually guarantees that we will not end up the same. People in prison are technically all equal, and almost everyone would give up that equality for Liberty. The political parties need to move away from entrenched means tests for membership and again embrace Liberty, including the Liberty of those who believe differently.

Rodger That: Being Alaskan

On June 1, Carmen, Weatherby, and I flew down to our cabin on Alaska’s largest lake. Illiamna is just slightly larger than the State of Rhode Island. Even more than in Anchorage, summer was missing. The trees were without leaves. Snow patches were the only distraction from the after-winter brown and grey land. Nighttime temperatures were in the 30’s and daytime barely reached forty. We had some airplane problems and I found myself working on the engine in a driving sleet storm the second morning. Weather like that after one of the most brutal winters in decades can wear you down; depress you into wondering if summer will arrive at all. One wonders why people stay in that environment.

We flew home two days early figuring that at least we could prepare our yard for the possibility of summer. The next day, a cold wind and showers made it necessary to break every couple of hours and warm up. Conversation shifted to an upcoming trip to visit friends on their houseboat on Kentucky’s Lake Cumberland where temperatures are in the mid 80’s. The last eight months make Robert W. Service’s story, The Cremation of Sam McGee make sense. When you’ve been cold for months, even your funeral pyre might feel good.

But in the Far North, things can change in a moment. The next morning dawned sunny and by noon, the temperature reached 60 and was still climbing. By three in the afternoon it was warm enough to enjoy a cold beer on the deck overlooking our yard and do a little research on final titles for the new book. We looked up just as a black boar and sow wandered across the yard headed toward our neighbors. Both were fat, totally out of place for bears just out of hibernation.

Minutes later, the bears were lounging between our houses, each so focused on devouring some treat that Weatherby’s barking didn’t even phase them. A moment later the neighbor roared from his back door, pellet gun in hand, pestering the bears with pellets and shouting at the top of his lungs. Apparently, this was the second time the Biggest Black Bear I’ve Ever Seen, and his companion found his garage and raided his freezer. Discretion being the better part of valor, the bears tore up his yard leaving. That was probably a good idea because the neighbor could just as easily reached for his 30-06 rifle loaded with 180 grain noslers.

OKAY, I thought, this is a summer in Alaska thing. Carmen just smiled. “Sunshine, bears, we just need a couple more signs and maybe we can believe that summer is coming.”

Which gets us to this morning when before nine, a cow moose crossed our road followed by a newborn calf on wobbly, spindly legs. Only minutes later Carmen saw two roly-poly fat coyotes only a couple of hundred yards from the house. It reminded me of rolling my Chevy Camaro off from an Alaska ferry years ago and stepping out to stare at the mountains, forest, and crystal clear ocean. I said the same thing then that I just thought. I am in the right place and no matter what, I’m staying.

Rodger’s Top 5: Classic Rock Bands I Listen To When I Write

I just finished a rewrite of my upcoming book. It is the second in the Team Walker Series, with one of the title characters an aging spy, Thadius Walker, who is called out of retirement.

I’ve been close to Thadius for years, spending months in between my published books exploring his life in a series that remains unpublished. The series is out of the norm, and someday I hope to find the perfect literary agent who will know exactly where to place the books. Each time I open one of those draft books, I am taken back to the 1970’s where many of his adventures begin. To get in the mood, I queue up several of my favorite musical artists of that era. I thought I’d list the five I’m listening to now as I begin work on the third book of the series.

Creedence Clearwater Revival
This group broke up in 1972, but before they did, they introduced me to southern rock. Songs like Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising took me back to the South, and a slower way of life. Their song Fortunate Son transports me to basic training in an anti-war era.

The Animals
This British, and later American group revealed a “white blues” genre that I never knew existed. We Gotta’ Get Out Of This Place paints a mood of frustration, and The House Of The Rising Sun, is perfect if my character is weary of trying in life.

Jefferson Airplane
No band can rekindle the awe and anger my characters felt during the counterculture movement of the 70’s. Grace Slick’s voice in White Rabbit brings back visions of the free love movement and raucous protests that tore at a nation more divided than today.

Linda Ronstadt
From her early career as the lead singer of The Stone Poneys to her solo albums including Heart Like a Wheel, Linda’s voice has an album that fits almost any scenario I’m writing about. Her later albums, including her Latin albums help me cross the southern border, sometimes into sweet family settings, but more often into rowdy or lonesome Mexican bars.

The Moody Blues
This British band was the first to layer classical music and rock, with albums that portray difficult but sophisticated situations. They are a perfect place to find a struggling hero’s emotional state as that character tries to use their intellect to overcome deep emotional trouble. For many Vietnam War vets, their anthem Nights in White Satin, was a tribute to American GIs coming home in body bags, although Justin Haywood, lead singer and writer swears it is an anthem to lost love.

The Moody Blues is my favorite band of the era, capable of leading me to the moods necessary to give my characters depth and also of lifting me out of whatever trouble I create for them.

Rodger Recommends: Authors Who Shaped My Fascination With Places And Times

This month I want to offer my recommendations on five early authors who shaped my fascination with places and times. My personal writings include historical adventures and thrillers; all crafted to take my readers to places they may never visit and into time periods and intrigues that molded a nation and its people. Like earlier authors, my stories glorify no superheroes, just ordinary women and men, often just kids who overcame enormous odds. Three of the authors are American and one British and one British Canadian. I say thanks and cherish their work.

James Fenimore Cooper was an author of the early 1800’s whose stories of early colonial life and adventure virtually created the genre of adventure fiction in America.

Favorite book…The Last Of The Mohicans

Robert Service was a British born Canadian whose stories of the north country at the turn of the 20th century presented the “frozen north’ of Alaska and the Yukon as real places teaming with scoundrels and everyday heroes, where the weather and wildlife became antagonists.

Favorite book…The Trail of ‘98

Ernest Hemingway was originally from Illinois but traveled the world looking for stories and adventures from the 1930s through the 1960s. His personal struggles always found a way into characters you care about.

Favorite book…The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest K Gann was an American who wrote of his two passions, aviation and sailing, taking his audience around the world, where life depended on the ability to deal with what broke or with pirates or bitter enemies. His settings were unique in that the story might be set in the middle of the Pacific during a typhoon or 25,000 feet in the air.

Favorite book…Fate is the Hunter

Patrick O’Brian was a British author who wrote of unique co-protagonists, one a Navy commander and the other a scientist and their adventures across the world and in mortal combat. He humanized leadership and elevated the lowest ratings on a ship to heroes. His unique pairing of seamanship and science were often critical to overcoming overwhelming odds.

Favorite book…Master and Commander

From Cooper I learned of early America and how people, indigenous and white pulled together. From Service I carried a childhood fascination of the north to a life in Alaska. Hemingway took me to war in Spain, fishing in Cuba, and on safari in Africa. Gann helped spike my fascination and lifetime involvement with aviation and exotic ports. O’Brian taught me about teamwork and persistence in the face of what might have been insurmountable challenges.

Note: Every book noted above became a major motion picture.

Rodger’s Two Cents: What Is Wrong With This Country Today?

Two of my books, Still Common Sense, and Awake, address the economy, our history, legal system, and political division. There are two themes in the books.

(1) You own you, in a (2) Imperfect but exceptional America

The country does not understand the historical environment around the nation’s founding.

The problems in our country are not a function of a dated constitution. Most have never read it, and we aren’t following it.

My novel Two Civil Wars, looks at how emotions drove the Civil War. Even stronger emotional disagreements drove the Mexican Civil War raging at the same time. The end of the war between the states was guided by forgiveness guided by constitutional norms. The nation healed. In Mexico the winners made new rules, and that nation continues to rumble with economic and political unrest more than a century and a half later.  Two Civil Wars is a love story and an adventure. It is a story of battle and brutality; of personal loss and joy. It’s a story of how love for our fellow man prevailed in the USA.

My fiction books include a thriller story and a love story, and all take a hard look at how this country overcomes challenges. In Enemy Patriots, I write about the racism against Japanese Americans and how so many of them were crucial to victory. I contrast that with racism rampant across the world. In The Opposite of Trust, the underlying conflict is how the people of the USA and of the Soviet Union both were faced with authoritarianism during the Cold War, and how each learned different lessons.

With these observations as background, what is wrong with this country? I don’t have the answers. For Rodger’s Top Five this month, I listed five of the quotations that I refer to when sorting out my own life. That exercise pushed me to think about similar quotations that might be helpful in sorting out America’s problems. Consider these two, in our Constitutional Republic.

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it.” – H.L. Mencken

“Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

This country is imperfect. It is also exceptional. Personal success is driven by each of us owning ourselves. Each of us needs to step away from saving humanity and the world and pick specific issues that we can change and then engage others to help rather than scream about those with different views. Ghandi said, “Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” 

One final quotation seems to offer advice. 

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” – Winston Churchill

Rodger’s Top 5: Favorite Quotations About Life

“Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Don’t be distracted by emotions like anger, envy, resentment. These just zap energy and waste time.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemmingway

“The reasonable man adapts his life to the world around him. The unreasonable man seeks to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Never miss an opportunity to shut up.” – Will Rogers

Rodger That: Atmospheric Rivers And Bears

The nation has been captured by stories of atmospheric rivers slamming California. Extreme storms are unusual in the southwest but are a regular weather phenomenon in Alaska. Not this winter; rather we’ve been under massive high-pressure systems for months. The kind of brutally cold air mass that deflected our normal storms south, to the golden bear state. 

In last month’s post I wrote of my favorite rivers, with the top of the list, The Iliamna River in Alaska. Our family owns acreage on a bluff above the river and a rustic log cabin. We use the cabin for fishing, hiking, bear watching, and bird and moose hunting in the fall. When a massive storm rolls in, the river can go from thirty yards across to a quarter mile and from three feet of water to thirty. The rise can happen in minutes. Watching massive trees and sections of riverbank roar by is an amazing experience. The river can also recede almost as quickly.

I recall one instance when it rose so fast that it submerged an old dirt road and bridge over the river, leaving me stuck on the wrong side. I parked the old beat-up Blazer I was driving and waited near the roaring flood for some friends to run a boat over to pick me up. After a night of roughing it in the cabin with six buddies, listening to 100 mile an hour winds slam sheets of rain against the walls, we awoke the next day to clear skies. (By roughing it, I mean finding that we only had red wine to go with a baked salmon dinner.)

We watched the river recede all of the next day and about six in the evening I pulled on a pair of hip boots and headed to the river. Knowing the moose and bears in the area were all stirred up by the flood, I slung my rifle over my shoulder. With the water within an inch of the boot tops, I began wading through the floodwaters, determined to recover the vehicle as soon as I could drive it across the flooded road. Being careful not to go over the tops of the boots or trip on a rock or sunken log carried by the floods, it took a half hour to reach a stand of submerged cottonwood trees on the far side of the meadow next to the river. 

As I started through the narrow roadway between the soaring trees, a branch snapped to my left, and then several more. With water to my boot tops, and deeper water to either side, there was no place to go, so I slid behind a huge cottonwood tree and waited. The occasional snap became a steady crunch of breaking limbs. Unsure whether it was a brown bear or moose coming through the flooded forest, I slid my rifle from my shoulder and loaded a shell into the chamber. (Whether bear or moose is irrelevant as either can kill you if you get too close.)

For five minutes I froze behind my tree as something huge moved closer. Then only fifteen feet away a four-year-old grizzly broke through a brush line, headed straight for me. The half lunging, half swimming bear had no idea I was there. I put my rifle to my shoulder and prepared to shoot; even if the bear just knocked me down, I’d drown. The bear's nose slid around the tree and then the head. He looked at me and growled, a look of total surprise on his face. 

Given about two seconds to make a decision, I lowered the rifle and slammed the bear on the nose with the barrel. You would have thought a bulldozer was running amuck through the cottonwoods as branches, brush and even small trees were thrown up where the bear ripped his way out of the forest. I waited a couple of minutes and then waded to dry ground. Sitting in the truck, I watched the water recede and rejoiced in the outcome of the encounter. 

This winter, reading about the California situation, it occurred to me that if the early California settlers had given the bears a little respect, there might still be golden bears in the golden bear state. It also occurred to me that they, with some infrastructure rework, might be able to use a few of these weather phenomena. We won’t miss one or two.   

Rodger’s Top 5: Rivers

THE AMUR…The Amur River makes up the border between northern China and the Russian Far East. Every spring, in just a few days, it pushes blocks of Siberian ice the size of buildings downriver mashing and booming. It can be heard miles inland and is one of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever experienced.  If you are lucky enough to have someone take you upriver, you’ll find yourself in one of the world’s last complete wilderness forests.

THE SEINE…A beautiful clear river that drains the Paris Basin, the Seine flows gently through farmlands, small villages and cities of northern France. Unlike most rivers I love, this is an urban river, tame and peaceful. The riverfront cafes, where it flows through Paris, are perhaps the most joyous place in the world to sit for an afternoon sipping great wine with friends and lovers. 

THE MISSISSIPPI…My wife and I spend a lot of time in New Orleans. One of our favorite places is the promenade just north of the riverboat landing. In the evening you can sit along the banks, echoes of jazz drifting from the city, and watch ships from all over the world carrying trade in and out of the central United States. This powerful river helped build America and is the epitome of a river as a highway and way of life. It recharges my Huckleberry Finn. 

THE BITTERROOT…I’ve fished Montana rivers for decades and love the Bitterroot. It’s a tame river running through beautiful farmland. In the summer, the scorching sun makes early morning and late evening fishing the best. In the middle of the day, you can pick from dozens of clear tributaries and follow them into the mountains until you can drive no more. Those willing to walk a bit, will find themselves in narrow mountain canyons with the rustle of pines in the wind overhead, and pools of pan trout that will feast on a dappled grey-hackle fly. 

ILIAMNA…Iliamna Lake is the largest in Alaska, about the size of the State of Rhode Island. From the Iliamna River on the east to where the Kvichak River drains into Bristol Bay, the drainage is about 200 miles long. Home to the world’s largest Sockeye salmon run, literally millions of fish push up from Bristol Bay into dozens of clear streams. Before commercial lodges inundated the area and increased fishing pressure twenty times since the 1970’s, it was also one of the premier trout fisheries in the world. Where a few years ago a fishing guide might get a client into schools of huge char and rainbows, they now run the river just to spot a fish, and after the salmon come in, join the bears in fishing for them. Still, it is the most beautiful country I’ve ever been in, ranging from heavy forests on the slopes of volcanoes, to rolling open tundra where it finds saltwater. It is the Iliamna River that keeps me and my family in Alaska.

Rodger That: The Surveillance State

(Roger that is a phrase used by the military and pilots to confirm communications, in this case, it’s between me and my fans.).

The 1990’s Russian Intourist Hotels that catered to foreigners were large boxes, with a bar, restaurant, and rooms with narrow lumpy beds, worn furniture, and pale lighting. That is the environment that I brought my friend Paul into on his first trip to Russia.

An accountant, Paul was a child of the Cold War, a student of American dogma and journalism about the Evil Russian Empire. I’d invited him to help me with a business start-up at a time when Russia was trying to shake off its past and reinvent itself. It was my third trip to Magadan, the former headquarters of the Soviet era gulags and prison camps. The Soviet Union was gone. While Paul readily accepted the trip, he was so nervous on the Aeroflot flight that he couldn’t eat. “I’m not about to sacrifice my freedom so that some damned KGB operative can meet his harass an American quota,” pretty much summed up his concerns.

Our first day of business meetings started to put him at ease. My interpreter, a French woman, helped make the meeting meaningful and rewarding. A great dinner at a Georgian restaurant with our clients offered a glimpse beyond the decrepit culture Paul was expecting. The client’s presentation on the potential of a mining claim they were developing opened his eyes to the country’s wealth. We were on our way toward helping our client launch a successful modern company and Paul’s paranoia was fading.

The second day’s meetings were even more productive, and I couldn’t have been happier with Paul’s financial advice to the client. That admiration faded the moment we returned to the hotel where the manager met us with two burley Russian policemen. Paul was about to be arrested. 

“What in the hell is this all about?” I asked.

“That man went on a rampage and did great damage to his room,” replied the manager. 

“Before you arrest my friend, would you show me what he’s done?” Two minutes later we walked into what appeared to be a fully functional, by Soviet standards, room. 

“Look," said the middle-aged blond manager, pointing at a tiny fixture in the ceiling. “And look there,” she added as we walked into the bathroom. Both fixtures were smashed.

“Would you give me a minute with my friend?” With the manager and policemen waiting outside the room, I asked, “What in the hell did you do?”

“I wasn’t about to let the KGB listen in on my phone calls,” he replied. “Once I found those listening devices, I made up my mind that they had no right to spy on me.”

“Paul,” I said, “those aren’t listening devices, they are sensors for the fire sprinkler system. They are probably really hard to find since they were installed thirty years ago.”

We settled the matter Russian style, by Paul apologizing and counting out six hundred US dollars and handing it to the manager. She promptly shared a hundred with each of the policemen before all three headed down the elevator. 

I walked Paul into my room and closed the door. “Paul, no one is listening in on you. The Soviet era is gone. You need to relax and recognize that what might be a small problem in the states can turn into a big problem here.”

The next day, as we were checking out, a tall muscular man approached me. In flawless English, with a British accent, he offered, “You gave your friend some really good advice for a foreigner traveling in my country.” The man smiled and then headed for the elevator.

I was on the plane when it dawned on me, the only way he would know about that conversation was if there were listening devices in my room. “Anything wrong?” asked Paul.

“Nothing, I replied.”