The following is eerily prescient, considering when it was written. And also very appropriate.
“No matter how much security we lay on, they are going to create one hell of a series of bloody messes from border to border and coast to coast. A lot of sweet dumb people are going to get ripped up. Headlines, speeches, doom, the end of our way of life, and so on. Terrorism is going to pay us one big fat bloody visit, McGee. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we can become a very tough kind of people.”
The Green Ripper, John D. MacDonald. 1979.
Kudos, jackmanni.
Anybody who reads, remembers and reapplies John MacDonald totally rocks. The knowledge and dread goes way back, if we’d just paid attention.
On the suface this is Cafe Society stuff because it’s lit-based. But in another sense it’s very topical discussion. We’ll see how it evolves.
But no matter which way it goes, great quote.
One quibble: I don’t think it was precognition. I think MacDonald was reacting and projecting nightmares. He didn’t know: he feared.
Veb
Thanks, TVeblen.
Now maybe I should start worrying about whether some of Meyer’s darker economic predictions are going to come true.
The Green Ripper was the first John MacDonald book I ever read and it must have made a strong impression on me, though in some ways it’s the most atypical novel in the entire Travis McGee series.
I just reread the part about targets. I think I’ll keep that particular nightmare to myself.