Word: shawns
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...Dance the Eagle to Sleep, her second novel, she follows the stress lines of U.S. society a few years into a bleak future. A very few years, because in the book's untroubled beginning it is not clear that anything has changed. The author introduces Shawn, an 18-year-old prep school senior who is a hugely successful rock singer: "In classes just enough juice flowed to light a few circuits; but when he was working with the group every switch turned on." Lucky Shawn. Recording profits turn into trust funds as he rides easy with the groupies...
Bucking the System. The author has more on her mind, however, than jollying readers with not-so-mock rock lyrics. A reference is made to a time when "the Army shelled Bedford-Stuyvesant . . . when the president has announced his policy of 'limited disciplinary retaliation' for uprisings." Shawn glooms about "the Nineteenth Year of Service" that hangs over his future. This scheme means 18 months in uniform for every 19-year-old, male and female. The Nineteenth Year was sold to the public as a liberal measure, because young pacifists were given a chance to serve in the pollution...
Grim Period. To many readers the editorials* suggested that The New Yorker is changing, that it is taking a new interest in serious issues. Mild-mannered Editor William Shawn almost sighs at the idea. He heard the same reaction when an issue of the magazine was given over to John Hersey's documentary on Hiroshima in 1946; when it carried Rachel Carson's warning against contamination. Silent Spring, in 1962; when it ran Richard Harris' analysis of the Justice Department last year. And he has heard it on many other occasions, including the aftermath of editorial attacks...
...last week's editorials did not represent an abrupt change for The New Yorker, even Shawn concedes that their tone may have revealed "deeper disquiet." In Shawn's view, this was because the events warranted it. "It was," he said, "one of the grimmest weeks that the country has ever lived through." Then he smiled slightly. "Despite that, there's also a lot of fun in the issue." Dick Nixon may not think so, unless he is in the market for a Rolls...
...once you accept that he is human, Shawn Masters is about right to be a hypnotist. Fleshy and self-assured, he has something of the same air that a photogenic politician or male movie star has when seen in person: the slightly artificial, larger-than-life appearance of a man who has been weathered by thousands of eyes. He's the sort of guy about whom people say, "He looks just like his pictures." just close enough and they'll go home satisfied. Tonight Shawn Masters is going to give both to the crowd-almost. And he's going...