Father of Lies (2 page)

I point out here one other thing: for me the traditionally female name on the gruff male-appearing farmer and working-class half brother is the same order of sign for the unsettling of our sense of the culture he (and Fochs) hail from, which comes from the unknown insides of that culture, as the quote from Thiong'o that heads the book. Rather than the cliché reading you might give either (that is, what you already know about the way such signs are traditionally read in “our” culture), you might let both function as signs of what you do not know about the way they actually function in either culture (African or Mormon). That's how I prefer to read what Evenson is pointing to with both signifiers. To develop either reading responsibly, you would have to read more Thiong'o to find out what it meant. You would have to undertake a personal study of rural Utah culture even a born Mormon such as Feshtig (or Evenson) does not (or did not at the time) have access to.

Here is one of Evenson's most effective strategies. In many ways this is an anti-Stephen King horror novel: Evenson evokes what Hannah Arendt did in her 1960s coverage in that decade's
New Yorker
of the trials of the Nazi war criminal captured by Israel, Adolf Eichmann: the banality of evil. Rather than utilizing a Baudelairean or Paterian attempt to raid evil for the beauty it may contain or pick over the cascade of minute perceptions of the world in all its variety—evil or good—for what can enrich life, Evenson
takes on the more austere task of comparing only the banality of evil (Fochs's over-quick description of the murder of a young girl out in the street one night; over-quick certainly because Fochs assumes the reader might find it too horrible to dwell on) with the banality of the everyday (an ordinary description of a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast at the kitchen table with his family the next morning).

Neither Fochs nor his creator assumes that poetry—by which I mean the fine observation and intriguing juxtapositions in language about the social and material world, in terms of either—is the site where the reader might find redemption, as it would be, say, were it a Theodore Sturgeon tale: nor is it a tale in which the force of its prose in analyzing the horror down to its perceptual and psychological atoms, could, in its course, recombine according to whatever grammar might be useful in solving the social or psychological problems.
^*
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If Evenson's work sits at the opposite pole from King's and Poe's, in his choice of story and structure, in his choice of verbal texture and narrative structure, it also sits at the opposite pole from Sturgeon's and Stephen Crane's. But the concert of all Evenson's choices, narrative and rhetorical, makes the book a serious—and sobering—story. Like much good horror, it's downright creepy; and, without a ghost in sight, it's haunting.

Wynnewood, October 25, 2015

Acknowledgments

I want to thank those who have shared their experiences with me in the course of writing this book—they have been invaluable in helping me understand the potential for abuse in religious hierarchies. Nevertheless, this is a work of fiction. It approaches a problem common in a wide range of religions. Any specific resemblance to actual persons or to any actual events is incidental.

Go home and observe these conditions. First, never tell anybody that you are a man without a soul. Second, when you reach home, seize the child you love most, pierce one of the veins in his neck, drink up all his blood until his body is completely dry, cook the body, eat the flesh.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o,
Devil on the Cross

Memorandum, Zion Foundation Institute of Psychoanalysis

From: Alexander Feshtig

To: Curtis Ballard Kennedy, Director

Director Kennedy:

I was somewhat surprised to receive your memorandum and even more surprised by your request. That you choose to contact me in such fashion rather than simply addressing me face to face suggests that you also see the request as problematic and are ashamed to make it. What you ask is a great deal more than an “imposition.” It will necessitate in effect my compromising my commitments both at clinic and home so as to listen to the tapes again, put my notes in order, revise my initial draft, and draw what (necessarily fragmentary) conclusions I can manage. I am disinclined to do it.

When I initially accepted this position, I was assured by your predecessor that our clinic would be allowed to operate independently of the sponsoring religion, that I was to be guaranteed the same privacy and confidentiality in regard to doctor/patient relations which would be afforded me in private practice. Your memorandum, however, suggests that this is not now, and perhaps never has been, the case. We cannot be expected to operate effectively with the Church breathing down our necks; our clients must be guaranteed full confidentiality, and must have a safe environment in which to progress. In addition, there are legal issues at stake. If “the Church needs to know” the details of this case (which I doubt), I suggest that it contact Provost Fochs himself, seeking to gain his permission before approaching me.

I understand the difficulty of your position, but nothing will be gained from operating through secrecy and stealth. No matter how important or powerful or inspired the apostolic elder is who prodded you to make this request, it is a request that should not have been made. You have convinced yourself that if you do this single favor for him—if you violate your ethics on this one occasion—that that will be the end of it. But once he sees you are willing to operate in clandestine fashion, he will call upon you often. Patients will be directed toward the clinic specifically so that an elder of the Church will have ready access to their files.

Though apostolic elders are men of God, that does not make all they do (or that you do on their behalf) godly. They are human: they can, and will, make mistakes. Hell is crammed full of godly men.

Is this an official request of the institution or the private “suggestion” of one apostle of the Church? If it is an official request, I must insist it pass through official, public channels in the proper way. If it is an unofficial “suggestion,” it must be ignored.

In short, I will not cooperate under such terms. I will not pass along to you my Fochs papers.

You have made a mistake in getting caught up in this. I can only wish you luck in extricating yourself as gracefully as possible.

                                        
Sincerely,

                                        
Feshtig

C. Ballard Kennedy, Director

Zion Foundation Institute of Psychoanalysis

Dear Elder Blanchard,

I was pleased to have your note, pleased as well to learn you hold my work in high regard. You are too kind. You are among the first to comment on the strengths of my article on Christian-based analysis—i.e. “Christianalysis”—though I hope you will not be the last. My present work continues along similar lines, postulating a psychoanalytic method which operates according to the inspired truths which our sacred books and our church leaders have revealed to us rather than according to the misunderstandings of worldly psychoanalysis and psychology. I believe it to be the sacred mission of all members of the Church to work actively to infuse their disciplines with the truth of the gospel, to shed the pure light of Christ over the shadowy professions of man.

In response to your query, I am sorry to say I know very little about the Fochs case. Dr. Alexander Feshtig has handled the case from beginning to end. Though it is clear that he is quite interested in the case, he has remained, as often is his wont, uncommunicative. He has declined to discuss the case or to make his tapes and notes available.

Since the request for information comes from an apostolic elder of the Church, I am willing to do as you ask. I think I will be able to gain access to at least some of Feshtig's notes and assorted papers on Fochs, though I would ask that you keep that between you and me. I would not normally do this: I have strict standards. But this is a special case. I know my duty to my profession but I know even better my duty as a member of the Church. I am certain you will handle the information I pass along in an inspired, cautious fashion.

By the way, I have a brother-in-law, a worthy and obedient member of the Church and a true scholar of the holy and revealed word of God, who has been adjunct faculty at our Church's university for a number of years. He has nearly been offered a full-time position several years running, but there are certain unchristian members of his department who refuse to recognize his merits, arguing that his work is not sufficiently rigorous. Yet, with his broad understanding of the inspired principles of the gospel, he is precisely the sort of teacher that would best serve the university! Is it too much of an imposition to ask if you have any advice as to how I might aid him to obtain the permanent position he deserves?

                                        
Sincerely,

                                        
Ballard Kennedy