"Is this how you felt when you went to battle against them? Like your guts might be ripped out? And you had to do it to them?"
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A New Brand of Patriotism:
Getting Back America by Paul Ehrlich Trafford Publishing
book review by John E. Roper
The last few decades have witnessed an increased polarization among the American people. Liberals and conservatives have drawn their lines in the sand over controversial issues and taken daily editorial potshots at each other in the media. Despite the existence of other organizations and movements, both religious and secular, the average citizen seems to place their hope for societal change in one of the two main political parties. But what if there was a secret, well-financed group that was able and willing to take radical action in a way no other organization would to get the country on what they deem to be the right track? This is the underlying theme in the author's novel which is appropriately subtitled, Getting America Back.
Part thriller but primarily a vehicle for Ehrlich's views on how to solve America's problems, the story starts with a very wealthy man, Jim Huffingston, unknowingly escaping being put on a list of politicians and the fabulously rich who have been selected to be abducted and transported, often with their families, to two remote islands nicknamed Parasita and Remedia. By having the families live off snakes, turtles, turtle eggs, and edible leaves while fending for themselves, the hope of their kidnappers is that they will somehow be reformed. As the book progresses, Huffingston and his wife actually join the cabal of abductors and work to form and promote the new American Patriot Party in an effort to "make things right again."
Although obviously written with passion and a sense of purpose, Ehrlich's plot presses beyond the boundaries of believability. Yet, if read simply as a call for America to work harder at solving some of its social woes, it succeeds.