New Books

THE GREEN PALMERS is the story of how a small town--Laurinville--confronts evil and overcomes it. The story is narrated by Mikey Brown, a twelve-year old schoolboy at the time and the story's hero, ten years after the event.

The idyllic town of Laurinville is visited one day by the "Green Palmers," whose logo is a green palm and whose promise is the Green Palm Way of Life. The presence of the Green Palmers has a subtle but profound effect upon the townspeople. One by one, they come under the spell of their promise....

However, some people refuse to submit. Here emerges the classic battle between good and evil within the soul of Laurinville. The story climaxes in a rousing confrontation between the Green Palmers and our young hero.

COMMENTS FROM READERS

"I found this book fascinating and disturbing…"

Susan McComb

Ten Speed Press

"A fantastic story! I went from being in suspense in the beginning to being mad at the stupid people [and] to being scared... And just when I thought I knew how it was going to end, it completely threw me off." Blakely Austin

"It reads a lot like the novels of Stephen King and David Koonce. It uses the self-doubt inside a person on the...evil in oneself to bring out the terror in the reader. The [book] takes the everyday normal things around us and weaves it into something to be afraid of. It is an art form itself to turn [the everyday] into a horror story. A REAL ALL-NIGHT PAGE-TURNER!!" Michael Duprey

"A very fast-paced story, it does not allow the reader to pause and reflect until the tale is told. The reader is too engrossed in the progress of the story to consider its implications while reading it." Joseph Fortune

"THE GREEN PALMERS examines the progress of America's social degeneration through the eyes of a child, [forcing] us to question ourselves and our society. It provokes thought without ramming the problems afflicting America down the reader's throat. It forces us to look into our hearts and realize that we are all Green Palmers." Dempsey Green

"[While the book] lives in the heart as a direct story, a story of Small Town, USA, with youth as its dragon slayer, a story for its own sake and yet, although the author never intrudes or points a moral, it also takes on meaning from what we know of affairs of history. To read it is an experience out of the ordinary, as it goes into the region where the heart and the head join together to recognize our values." Jacob Isbell

"The work is written in a clear and connected narrative. A story line could be followed by a young reader as he explores the changes that occur in an adult world and learn to comprehend through the eyes and questions posed by a 12-year old paper boy roaming the neighborhood.

Simplicity in vocabulary and brevity in sentence structure does not minimize the complexity of the subject. A sophisticated reader will also appreciate the irony and satire in the characters developed." Steve Kendall

"[As] an allegorical novel, it can be read and appreciated on many different levels. Both children and adults will find the novel interesting and enlightening. Children should like it for its humor and graphic details, such as vomiting up vile green slime. The plot is simple enough for children to follow. ...Adults should especially enjoy the novel because it is easier for adults to see through the surface and glean the real meaning of the story. [The book] makes it enjoyable for readers of all ages. MAY WE ALL BE SAFE FROM THE GREEN PALMERS." George Wachter

Chapter One

As a testimony to the strange tale of evil that had almost lured the town's soul to sleep, the statue used to be much easier to notice. Time and repetition, along with other forces of nature, have made it less noticeable now. And thank Heavens for that.

Observant visitors to Laurinville, as they drove into town on the main highway, had no trouble spotting the life-size bronze statue of a boy. The boy has his eyes raised to the sky in earnest anxiety and resolve. Clutched in his hands with great determination is a picture frame the size of a small painting. Instead of a painting, however, the frame contains only an inscription, which says, "LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL." Incidentally, the inscription has become the town motto of Laurinville since the Event.

The statue can be seen today only by those who are looking for it with more than casual interest. The robust presence of perennial flowers and viny bushes, once planted around the statue only to highlight it, has simply outgrown and obscured its original purpose. Honeysuckles alone have grown so vigorously that they now cover much of the view of the statue. Like an important visitor whose every need is well attended to at first but whose subsequent familiarity soon breeds comfortable routines, the statue is now in a state of loving indifference.

I have been the one who has tried to keep it that way, somewhat against the wishes of some townspeople who want to keep their young hero more visible to visitors. But so far my sense of modesty has prevailed upon their civic eagerness every time the issue of renovation comes up. Why do I have such an influence on the town? Just by the sheer unfolding of fate, I must confess, with which my own will had so little to do. Life seems to be a large revolving stage on which will and fate take turns to tell their story.

Those with a keener observation might find that the face of the statue rather resembles one Michael Brown, a twelve-year old schoolboy at the time they erected it.

The caption on the plaque below the statue reads:

DEDICATED TO MICHAEL BROWN

A BOY WHOSE BRAVERY AND INTELLIGENCE

SAVED HIS TOWN FROM THE GREEN PALMERS.

That is quite a mouthful for a young boy. Even among most adults nowadays much of the dread associated with the memory of the Green Palmers has faded. The incident was almost like a bizarre nightmare which, once we wake up from it and realize what an utterly silly dream it was, we consciously try to forget. But there were times when the statue was more visible than today and the townspeople's dreadful memory much sharper than it is now. All the visible signs of the Event, which once dominated Laurinville's body and soul have now been erased from view. Aside from what is deeply lodged in their sometimes puzzling dreams, they might insist that the whole thing had come and gone like a summer shower--much sound and fury, but no lasting marks.

Now and then, some old timers still insist on reviving the tale of good and evil, to which they feel they own the retelling rights. My insistence that the now-fading memories of the Green Palmers were actually much more sinister than retold, or that the heroic deeds of Michael Brown were actually much less heroic than recalled, merely falls on deaf ears. Naturally both good and evil are embellished in any retelling. So is the truth. I am quite certain about saying this simply because I am that Michael Brown, "Mikey" to my father and friends. I know what I did and didn't do.

Recently I have been repeatedly asked by Miss Miriam Raynor, our town historian of impeccable credentials, to tell the whole story from the viewpoint of my own involvement. She is compiling a ten-year review of the Event for the town annals and is of the opinion that my own account would be particularly valuable for her purpose. After all, Miss Raynor insisted, I was in the thick of it from beginning to end and (to quote her) "single-handedly defeated the invaders." A decade, she believes, is long enough for me to overcome my own reluctance to relive the memory.

Upon her irresistible and repeated urgings, I finally gave in and decided to tell the whole singular story from my personal experience.

I was seven years old when the tornado named Martha (one of the first tornadoes to be named) swept through Laurinville and killed 12 people. The only thing that I remember about the tornado itself was the vague sense of terror and excitement as we crouched on the floor at school, hearing the passing of Martha in a loud rumble as if a train was passing directly over us. It broke all the windows at our school. But it also broke my heart, for my mother was one of the victims. She was inside the house when Martha hit and caused part of the house to collapse on her. The town mourned its dead as if a heavenly edict had demanded its great sacrifice for no earthly reason. The town of Laurinville still bears the scar. One of the barns just outside the town stands half destroyed, now covered with wild vegetation and, although somewhat eroded by time, mostly unchanged.

My father worked, as he still does, as a baker at the town's only sweet shop. He has always been good at making specially-decorated cakes for birthdays, weddings, graduations, and anniversaries of all kinds. Often the caricatured decorations on the cakes are so humorous that the picture gets more attention than the person whose day is celebrated. However, his and the bakery's specialty was, as it still is, its fine array of doughnuts. Even today many townspeople make a special pilgrimage to visit the bakery and taste the doughnuts as they are served hot off the pan. Sometimes my father himself would come out from the kitchen to join them and take pleasure in their compliments on his workmanship. The customers would sit around at the shop's few tables, mostly laughing about non-events, sometimes exchanging views about the current crops and speculating on the upcoming weather.

As I was growing up this scene at the bakery always occupied my mind as if it were the essence of Laurinville. Our small-town life was without deep guile as it was without momentous events. Even with the tragic interlude of Martha, the town was really all laughter and small exchanges as I remember it.

Father always brought a doughnut or two when he came home late at night as a special treat for me. Of course, I had already gone to bed by then, often tucked in by my neighbor and babysitter Jamie Yarborough. She was good at making up a new bedtime story practically every night. At the time the Green Palmers came to our town I was already twelve and Jamie, who was only six years older than her charge, had become my best buddy. Sometimes she still tried to treat me like the seven-year old grief-stricken child that I once was and I had to remind her how tough I had grown. She was still stronger and bigger than me, though, so I let her get her way most of the time. Besides, I was extremely fond of her.

On Sundays and Mondays my father was off work. On those days we would go to the town cemetery to visit Mother, sweep away the fallen leaves from the stone that marked her grave, and put fresh flowers in the vase. We almost never varied this routine. The only time we did not carry on with this routine was when I was sick with chicken pox. Sitting by Mother's grave, Father and I would tell her what had happened at his bakery and my school and some noteworthy events in Laurinville. When I had good grades to report I was especially delighted to tell her about them. Sometimes Father and I would have sandwiches there and even set a plate for her as if she were still with us.

Father was only in his early thirties when my mother died. He was a hardworking man known for his patience and honesty, and he was handsome. Naturally many widows and single women in Laurinville thought of him as a good man to get to know. Still very much in love with my mother, he was merely cheerful with their often obvious intentions and treated them courteously and respectfully. With one exception.

My father was particularly courteous and respectful with one Miss Terry Casey who was the only female auto-mechanic at a local repair shop. Her technical competence was well known. I often heard people whisper that she could fix problems that her male colleagues had given up as impossible. But she was so sweet and modest about her technical superiority that the male technicians felt no shame in asking her for help whenever they needed it. Even in a friendly town of infinite goodwill, and considering her business was known for its largely masculine nature, this tactfulness seemed no small accomplishment. Sometimes I watched her work under a car, grease on her mechanic's overall and even on her pretty face. She always took delight in teaching me about cars, showing me how each part worked to make the whole car run.

Miss Casey's husband, a fellow mechanic, was also one of the tornado victims. Whenever the town gathered to mourn its victims on anniversaries, I felt we should be as close as a family. Once my father's car broke down at home and Miss Casey came to fix it. While Father was describing the trouble to her they accidentally brushed each other's hands and both of them got red in the face and fumbled with words. When they noticed that I was watching the whole thing, they even got redder in the face and fumbled even more. I always thought they would make a nice couple. But apparently neither my father nor Miss Casey (everyone in town called her Miss Casey even when her husband was alive) was bold enough to make any decisive move on the matter. But I knew Father was particularly fond of her. One day as we came home from a town picnic held at the park he told me several times how impressed he had been with Miss Casey's apple pie. For the best-known bakery man in town, I considered his praise of her pie extremely significant.

When Father came home late at night he always left a note with his treat for me. They were notes of simple assurance that everything in this world would be all right, and that the day held no mishap waiting for me and the night should not be feared. The doughnut had become cold just right in the fridge by the time I awoke the next morning. Father used to get up, even though he had barely gone to bed, to make sure everything was all right with me before I started off to school. But a motherless boy learns to take care of himself fast, and by the second year of her absence I became self-sufficient in most things around the house, doing the laundry and making my own school lunches. Gradually Father trusted me enough not to struggle out of his sleep to help me off to school.

Most of the time, I could hear him snore in his bedroom as I ate the doughnut with milk and read his note. There is nothing more reassuring for a young boy than the routine and the familiar. He feels safe and comforted by the feeling that everything would always be like this. My home life without Mother was now almost full and always predictable with my father's notes, his doughnuts, and his snoring. Not to disturb his sleep, I would tiptoe out quietly.

Our routine was about as unvarying as the town of Laurinville itself. Aside from unforeseen disasters like Martha, Laurinville had not changed much in the rush of modernization. Its population had remained about the same throughout the years when all other towns seemed to have gained more people. Laurinville's main street had not changed much, except for the repairs carried out after Martha's destruction. In fact, Miss Raynor, the town historian, told me several times during our conversations that Laurinville may be the most unchanged town in modern America. It was so even after the great and terrible desires of the heart that radically altered everything in town for a while.

In the end, Laurinville survived everything--modernization, Martha, and ultimately the Green Palmers. But it almost did not survive the last one.

Here is a brief introduction to my most recent book, THE POST-HUMAN SOCIETY (Released in February, 2005, by PublishAmerica, Frederick, MD)

This introduction consists of SYNOPSIS, COMMENTS, and CHAPTER 1.

SYNOPSIS:

”Accustomed to unprecedented affluence and efficiency, we in America now believe that our lives can be effortless and painless, and that we can concentrate on attaining pleasurable experiences as a matter of daily routine.

In this book Huer describes “post-human” American society as defying history and humanity—and brilliantly so—by creating a life without pain and social relations without inconveniences. In short, this “post-human” America wastes little energy on human connections, concentrating wholly on the dynamic, but ultimately futile, pursuit of self-interest.

This provocatively original book explores how this new type of society and its human relations have evolved and what it portends to the way we live with one another. Huer contends that, however ingenuously and inventively we deny it, no society can survive without the thoughts and actions that are related to and inspired by other human beings.”

COMMENTS ON THE POST-HUMAN SOCIETY

“The author shows commanding authority on every page…” Allison Davis

“The author is none short of brutality…. Quite incredible in his writings, one almost feels guilty for even existing. He knows how to write and just what to write.” Jennifer Pepas

“The author avoids social science jargon and writes in his own ‘native language’ that forecasts boldness and self-assurance. Huer delivers genuine concerns of our society at large. ” Howard Hollister

“Surprisingly in its satire on the surface of America’s strength and riches, secretly America is an intensely sad situation… Inside post-human America, existence is sleek and efficient, every shade and degree of human relations cut down into convenient habits and events. Huer further states that as a ‘soul-less’ civilization, it operates better than any other nation and society within the Old World.” John Hamilton

“….Very blunt and terrifying truths about American society.” Catherine McGinn

“The author describes America as a new kind of society, in which people focus their time and energy so solely on being efficient, without any consideration of human connections, and people would become ultimately rational to the point of being post-human or soul-less. The author’s portrayal of American society is extensive and searingly accurate. He is adept at transcending the boundaries of social science and shows an inclusive portrayal of society.” Jordan Hogg

“The book opened my eyes to the way American society is moving toward separation and isolation. It really explains how our society has changed through consumers, producers, and greed of satisfying one’s self.” William Beasely

“Post-human America wastes little energy or passion on human entanglements so that, with its now-undivided attention, it can focus on leading the world in technological, economic, military, and cultural superiority. This post-human America is a paradox. As a ‘soul-less’ society, it functions pretty well. However, there are deeper problems that exist in such a society.” Robbie Treadwell

“The style is ordinary and refined. Huer writes to ‘real people,’ keeping his readers’ attention with his casual but bold style. He gets into the personal lives of Americans and talks about Americans as individuals.” Bridgett Parker

“I wish that our leaders and more everyday citizens would take the time to read and study this book. I think that this would delay or even reverse the decline of our society.” James Dupree

“Huer describes and his observations and opinions of American society in such a way that, in many instances, I found myself not only learning new things about our society, but often agreeing with him as well. He opened my eyes to many of the characteristics of American society, both negative and positive, and encouraged me to also formulate new ideas about my own life, family, community, and society.” Leticia Lapre

“Personally, Huer not only gives his readers harsh facts of reality about American society, he also wants his readers to gain knowledge from an interior point of view as well as create our own perspective.” Ian Preuss

“Interestingly, Huer never mentions his hate or dislike for American society. Instead, he just critiques nd analyzes ideas and theories from his own direct view and perspective. Throughout the book, he combines all factors on how Americans are successful, selfish, proud, determined and scared individuals who are trapped into their own success.” Naomi McCleod

“Huer does not necessarily criticize but pinpoints the weaknesses of American society. Personally, I think that he wrote the book to also give the readers a taste of their own selfishness.” Trevor Smith

CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS A POST-HUMAN SOCIETY?

I

This book is about American society as it enters into an era of people and culture wholly different from anything the world has seen before. It is what I have termed a “Post-Human Society." In post-human America, life is streamlined and rationalized, all shades and nuances of human relations simplified into manageable routines and procedures. Typically, each individual is isolated from other individuals so that his (or her) self-calculation can be logically derived without distraction from human "relations." This post-human America wastes little energy or passion on human entanglements so that, with its now-undivided attention, it can focus on leading the world in technological, economic, and military superiority. The world has never seen such a concentration of human energy and passion on such a non-human end.

This emergence of a post-human America has been foreseen by some critics, like Max Weber, who saw societies changing along a historical path, generally from traditional to rational types and that the Western societies would lead the world in this movement toward rationalization. A society would become more and more organized, bureaucratized and dehumanized to the extent that, at least theoretically, all human behavior would be determined by rational calculus. In other words, all rational societies would be without soul, namely, a post-human social type. He named American society—for all its “new world” characteristics--as one most likely to achieve this ideally rationalized type.

But, as we witness today, this post-human America is a paradox. As a "soul-less" society, it functions perfectly well; judged by its economic and military superiority, it functions better than any other nations and societies in the Old World. In post-human America, there is hardly a "social problem" that is left to human caprice or emotion. From divorce to delinquency, from drugs to crime, from mental depression to suicide, anything that might cause human entanglement and waste of energy, post-human America has provided with a simplified and seemingly efficient solution. Humanity has never seen a society where its human relations are so organized and predictable, and virtually distraction free. As America's post-human inhabitants, we need not concern ourselves with anything but our own personal aspirations and desires. Such rationality and soulless efficiency cannot be imitated (though they may be imagined) by any other culture or society. Naturally, paradoxes and troubles follow. This book describes what these paradoxes and troubles are, and how this post-human society has emerged to dominate our hearts and souls.

II

Social scientists never grow tired of reminding us, with ample justification, that there are always two sides to every reality that we experience in society: One that is visible and obvious, the other that is at least partially hidden. Thus, the visible reality is only partially comprehended at any given time, since full understanding of the easily visible portion necessarily depends upon comprehension of that hidden portion of the social experience. Once uncovered, the whole truth makes perfect sense and stands to reason, adding to our collective wisdom in a democratic commonwealth and improving our private virtues and happiness therein.

The part that is visible makes up our public images of reality--comforting and familiar, but mostly incomplete if not false--normally available from the popular media, politicians, and corporate sponsors. Most people, most of the time, live and agree with this part of their social life. The hidden or invisible part reveals itself through our realization that life has many dimensions, some obvious but unrecognized. Through this realization we learn that life in society contains many layers of meaning and motive, the public layer being only one.

American society today is made up of these two parts to its realities. One is well known, and the other not so well known. Let us look at the well-known America first: In this image, the United States is now the mover and shaker of world politics, economics, and culture. Its military garrisons span the world and can strike anywhere in the world on short notice and with utter effectiveness and devastation. After the collapse of its only credible rival, the Soviet Union, the American nation has no human enemy that it fears. America's entertainment, technology, and business have spread to the four corners of earth, which trades and reckons its state of wealth, or lack of it, basically with the American currency.

William Pfaff, a correspondent in Europe filed this report from Paris on the eve of 2002, an appraisal of the United States as the world-dominant empire that merely reaffirms the fait accompli that is often referred to as Pax Americana, the “American Peace,” in the fashion of its predecessor, Pax Romana: PARIS The world begins 2002 in a situation without precedent in human history. A single nation, the United States, enjoys unrivaled military and economic power, and can impose itself virtually anywhere it wants.

Even without nuclear weapons, the United States could destroy the military forces of any other nation on earth. If it should so choose, it could impose complete social and economic breakdown on almost any other state.

Its own weapons are mostly invulnerable, deployed under and above the oceans, or in hardened sites inside the United States. The nation's cities, if Washington's current ambitions are gratified, are to become actively defended by anti-missile systems. No nation has ever before possessed such power, and such comparative invulnerability. The United States is using its power to shape a new world order....

This is the well-known part of America, although somewhat simplified, that requires no further elaboration.

III

Away from this public reality, however, American society emerges as a living hell of loneliness, distrust, and self-destruction among its citizens. Away from its surface image, the other America is an unrelenting battleground of stupefying self-interest in Money (and more Money), Me (and more Me) and Fun (and more Fun). Away from America’s invincible economic and military arsenal, its soul is benumbed with entertainment, its heart blind to all but self-satisfaction, its pursuit of happiness nothing but a one-way road to the destruction of its own community and humanity.

Between these two conflicting realities, in fact, life in the United States today is a silent war against itself. It is being waged among ourselves, in our families, at our workplaces, and among our neighbors and strangers. Above all, it is war of every American soul against the better part of itself.

The Unites States is dominating the world in one reality as everyone can plainly see. But, that dominant reality also contains hidden cracks that are slowly undermining its social and moral foundations. The complete picture of America today thus contains a very strong and prosperous facade along with a very troubling purgatory within itself.

The overwhelming feeling is that Americans have radically changed in the last few decades and that America is not what it used to be. This connection between social change at large and its effect on our personal life can be observed in so many ways, large and small, in public spectacles like economy and war, as well as in private moments of solitary loneliness and unfulfilling relationships. The wealthiest nation in the world is also the poorest in human happiness; the strongest military power that fears no evil is also made up of citizens who fear each other; and the most vigorously entertaining culture creates so much that is empty and meaningless in its very vigor and amusement. It is way beyond what humanity ought to tolerate or crave.

IV

Let us place this peculiar contradiction in larger historical perspective. The establishment of the United States stands as the finest flowering of the western ideals that history generally refers to as the Enlightenment. In an enlightened society and world, it has been assumed, we could be free from each other but still remain essentially good to one another. This is indeed a daring—not to say fundamentally contradictory—idea that no other nation of the Old World has realistically hoped to try. Only American society, a truly “new” world, would be innocent enough or fortunate enough to believe in this risky proposition as its collective creed. One might say that the whole embodiment of contemporary life in America can simply be summed up in this struggle to be free from one another yet to remain decent to everyone. Can we be truly free from one another, yet nice to each other at the same time?

This book says, No. In the following pages we shall see its attempt to answer the many questions that naturally arise from this assertion: Why are freedom and decency essentially contradictory? What are some of the specific social processes that describe such contradictions? How do we as Americans rationalize our private selves and relationships and find our moral bearings in such impossible dilemmas? Where do we go from here?

V

As a national profile, contemporary American society commands the appearance of strength and dynamic prosperity. As a personal experience, this is where we wage a silent civil war, every man for himself, every man against every man—unfulfilled, distrusting, lonely and selfish. It is the ultimate logic of the Enlightenment actualized to the fullest extent imaginable. The historical blessings of the modern world—the idea that man should be free, comfortable, and good--are threatening to undermine the very society that has made such an idea its exclusive reason for existence.

Of course, America as a Post-Human society is a mere assertion that needs to be substantiated with reason, evidence and argument. If it is proposed that America is not what it appears to be, and that its present predicament is at once its finest monument to humanity and its worst folly as a human community, the reader naturally wants to be persuaded. In the following pages, we will begin that process of persuasion by first traversing in time to visit America at its beginning, then by uncovering the hidden inner core of its lives and times today. What emerges from this exercise, ideally, should say something definitive about American culture, society and civilization—our very collective soul. Given the aim of this book, nothing less can be expected from our effort. The alternative would simply be inviting a catastrophic disintegration of the United States as we have known it.

[End of Chapter 1]