Jamestown

Around this time of year, maybe you're reminded of the origins of this country, the United States of America, and all we have to be thankful for. How settlers came from across the vastness of the ocean to bravely explore a new world. How they overcame adversity in the forms of a strange land and its strange inhabitants. How they ultimately triumphed, and eventually moved on to create the strongest democracy in the world.

Jamestown, by Matthew Sharpe, is a book that forces readers to look at this romantic view of our country's origins through a different lens. Its a point of view I won't soon forget.

Jamestown is a weird book. It is a very weird book. It is futuristic, post-apocalyptic historical revisionist fiction. Before this book, I don't believe that was a genre. Jamestown retells the story of the settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, but from the angle of a devastated America of the future. We begin with our settlers -- a ragtag group of men from the Manhattan Company -- on a bus, traveling cross-country to find a new land with more plentiful resources: namely, oil. Our view then shifts to that of the "Indians," a group of people that most likely are not of Native American descent but who have, for whatever reason, decided to live as Native Americans lived. We see the story from both sides -- the confused and angry Indians who find themselves being invaded, and the confused and angry settlers who find themselves under attack in a strange land.

It is written in the first person, and different characters narrate different chapters. The focus is primarily on Johnny Rolfe, a Communications specialist, and Pocahontas, the Indian princess of the tribe nearest to the ramshackle Jamestown settlement. However, in the middle of the book, our point of view opens up widely, and we are treated to first-person accounts from minor or otherwise less-centralized characters. It is disjointed, sometimes confusing, and, in a way, it helps orient you with the characters' situations. There is little stability for any of them to hold onto.

The odd plot structure is helped along by the writing. Matthew Sharpe is a master of language. The way these characters talk conveys layers and layers of weirdness. Pocahontas' voice, for example, often moves from poetic prose to hard street slang, sometimes within the same sentence. Colloquialism mashes with formality, and it creates a strange continuity that fits in this world. That is to say, Jamestown is funny. It is saying some important things, I think, but it never takes itself too seriously.

As a retelling of historical events, some of the plot I could predict beforehand. But Sharpe is telling a story with deeper resonance than a simple (albeit strange) retelling. He is turning the spotlight on America today, by clashing America's past with America's future. The settlers, all survivors of a bombed-out Manhattan (which finds itself currently at war with Brooklyn), are traveling to Virginia, invading land that does not belong to them, to retrieve oil for their corporate master, James Stuart, CEO of the Manhattan Company. Throughout the story, the settlers and the Indians cannot communicate, though they speak the same language. Misunderstandings turn deadly. In the end, capitalism must prevail, and so America lives to march on. Sounds like our real-life political climate today. It's apparent that Sharpe wants to make us think about these events. I'm grateful that he has wrapped up such a strong political message about understanding and fairness within such a funny and entertaining story. It never gets preachy. It never asserts itself as a political statement. In my mind, that makes it more powerful than any five hundred page treatise on the worldwide spread of democracy.

Jamestown is not a perfect book. My biggest complaint is the manner in which Sharpe tells the story -- he seems to try out some ideas, then abandon them for awhile, only to pick them up later on and eventually abandon them again. In the beginning, the story is told through messages typed by Johnny Rolfe and Pocahontas into their "wireless communications devices." They are writing journals, basically, and they address the reader directly as one would address the recipient of a message in a time capsule. Eventually, their wireless devices are stolen from them, but the story continues, first as a case of the characters "writing" to an unknown "someone" in their heads -- but soon that pretense is dropped in favor of straight first-person narrating. By the middle of the story Sharpe has left behind the wireless communication devices. The beginning of the third and final section brings back the wireless storytelling device; but only for a few chapters. It is then forgotten again, and the story continues in typical first person. It's not a huge problem, but a little more continuity in the way the story was told would have been more comfortable. Though maybe Sharpe is making a statement about communication. Maybe he's saying that even if you're writing, nobody is listening, and you're just as well off composing your thoughts in your own head. Or maybe he changed his mind while writing and decided to take the story in a different direction. Like I said, not a huge problem.

All negative thoughts aside, give Jamestown a read. It will make you laugh, and it will make you think. Matthew Sharpe has taken one possible future, dressed it up in the clothing of the past, and used it to train a camera on our present in a very compelling way. This Thanksgiving, be thankful for your country, and be thankful for great authors like Sharpe who challenge us in unique ways.