“In The Matter Of J. Van Pelt” is a book about obsession – political, religious, romantic and historical. It’s also about True Love and hope, which are also dangerous.
J. Van Pelt , 42, is a true believer on the slide. He works for a conservative legal foundation that has stumbled across a career-building case: Max Gold, a revered liberal fundraiser, has been observed in an innocent yet embarrasing position by a 12- year-old boy. The lad’s father demands justice – or at least a lawsuit that will force Gold to cough up substantial money to alleviate his son’s “pain and suffering.”
Putting Gold’s head on the wall would make Van Pelt an ideological superstar. Yet as he prepares to launch a lawsuit targeting Gold he feels increasingly ill at ease, largely due to reading his own diary entries. What sort of man, he wonders, hopes to advance himself this way? Only a loser and a crank.
Steadily, his ideological certitudes fall away. He’s also consumed by the impending death of his uncle Shupe, who is part Moses, part Snopes, and part W.C. Fields. He resides in Appomattox County, Va., where his family has lived for three centuries. He’s an old man, raised by a slave, who sailed the world with the Navy, came to believe in U.F.O.s, wants to be cloned. He has, he reveals, also dabbled in cannibalism.
By comparison, Van Pelt feels his life is empty and meaningless. He has never really taken a chance. The voice that presents itself in his diary – the Lurking Entity – convinces him he must break free from Washington. Van Pelt has also met a beautiful woman – Alison -- another life-changing development.
But freedom comes with its own set of problems, including his discovery that Shupe was involved in a murder that only Van Pelt can make right. He also wonders if Alison would love him if she knew his deepest secrets – secrets contained in this very book.
Van Pelt is a strange man, but he's also heroic -- brave enough to leave his daily grind behind, and to bare his soul in the pursuit of love.
He also turns out to be a proficient grave-robber.
DAVE SHIFLETT is a longtime journalist and author. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and many other publications. His books include "Exodus" and "The America We Deserve" (with Donald Trump).
J. Van Pelt , 42, is a true believer on the slide. He works for a conservative legal foundation that has stumbled across a career-building case: Max Gold, a revered liberal fundraiser, has been observed in an innocent yet embarrasing position by a 12- year-old boy. The lad’s father demands justice – or at least a lawsuit that will force Gold to cough up substantial money to alleviate his son’s “pain and suffering.”
Putting Gold’s head on the wall would make Van Pelt an ideological superstar. Yet as he prepares to launch a lawsuit targeting Gold he feels increasingly ill at ease, largely due to reading his own diary entries. What sort of man, he wonders, hopes to advance himself this way? Only a loser and a crank.
Steadily, his ideological certitudes fall away. He’s also consumed by the impending death of his uncle Shupe, who is part Moses, part Snopes, and part W.C. Fields. He resides in Appomattox County, Va., where his family has lived for three centuries. He’s an old man, raised by a slave, who sailed the world with the Navy, came to believe in U.F.O.s, wants to be cloned. He has, he reveals, also dabbled in cannibalism.
By comparison, Van Pelt feels his life is empty and meaningless. He has never really taken a chance. The voice that presents itself in his diary – the Lurking Entity – convinces him he must break free from Washington. Van Pelt has also met a beautiful woman – Alison -- another life-changing development.
But freedom comes with its own set of problems, including his discovery that Shupe was involved in a murder that only Van Pelt can make right. He also wonders if Alison would love him if she knew his deepest secrets – secrets contained in this very book.
Van Pelt is a strange man, but he's also heroic -- brave enough to leave his daily grind behind, and to bare his soul in the pursuit of love.
He also turns out to be a proficient grave-robber.
DAVE SHIFLETT is a longtime journalist and author. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and many other publications. His books include "Exodus" and "The America We Deserve" (with Donald Trump).
