INTRO
I'm going to begin posting the original manuscript of my screenplay-novel, TRUTH MARATHON. This was completed ten years ago.
Despite the fact that at that time, the ms. had been through several drafts and was, to my mind, finished, the project has been through many (as in many, many) changes since then, and now is part of a much larger, more ambitious project with the overall title PLASTIC MILLENNIUM. Part of the project I'll be engaging in will be a description of how the project -- and my thinking about it -- has evolved. I'll be paying particular attention to the ways in which the material production of fictional narrative has also changed; publishing has been through extraordinary changes in the past decade -- I'd like to contextualize my own creative work within that seething, hyper-productive, and, at times, dysfunctional, framework.
(For French and Korean readers, I also have French and Korean translations of some of the novel which I shall also post.)
The novel is primarily set in the 21st Century. However, it opens in Tokyo, January 26, 1941: approximately ten months before Pearl Harbor and full American entry into World War Two. Of course, as even occasional readers of history know, the U.S., under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was profoundly eager to enter the war: Roosevelt himself was acutely aware of what a dangerously unstable leader Hitler was, and, by late 1941 and the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Werhmacht, it seemed the Nazis were winning. And as several members of Roosevelt's cabinet knew, a Nazi victory on the Eurasian continent would spiral into a geopolitical nightmare for a now-isolated United States. In other words, Hitler's war to dominate both continental European and the USSR would ultimately directly threaten the US. The mood of much of Roosevelt's cabinet was almost agonizingly desperate for action.
At the same time, the Tripartite Pact (the Axis Pact) between Japan, Italy and Germany had been noted by the US. Since the Japanese were already fighting their own war in East Asia, in a grandiose attempt to colonize Korea, China and much else of Asia, Japan was already fighting its own massive regional war. But while the Germans had, via the conquest of Romania, their own oil, the Japanese were dependent on oil from Western powers such as the US and the imperial Dutch, who had oil wells in Indonesia.
Intelligence began to flow that, in an attempt to secure their own supply of fuel, the Japanese imperial government was considering a move to "protect its flank" by attacking the US fleet, which had been -- with geopolitical significance -- stationed by the White House at Pearl Harbor.
TRUTH MARATHON - ONE
EXT:
A STREET IN PRE-WORLD WAR TWO TOKYO. MID-DAY.
TITLE:
TOKYO, JANUARY 26, 1941.
A
car pulls up in front of the Japanese branch of the National City
Bank of New York. A WELL-DRESSED WESTERN MAN emerges. He enters the
bank.
INT:
THE BANK. A MOMENT LATER.
The
WELL-DRESSED WESTERN MAN stands in line. After a moment, he reaches
the front.
JAPANESE MALE TELLER:
[with a strong accent]
Hello.
May I helping you?
WELL-DRESSED
WESTERN MAN:
Konichiwa.
Yes, I’d like to convert some yen to U. S. dollars.
JAPANESE
MALE TELLER:
How
much?
WELL-DRESSED
WESTERN MAN:
[reaching
into his jacket and
pulling
out a big envelope]
Well,
it’s rather a large amount….
JUMP-CUT.
JUST BEHIND THE WELL-DRESSED WESTERN MAN.
ANOTHER
WESTERN MAN, also well dressed, taps the first on the shoulder.
OTHER
WESTERN MAN:
[with
a Latin American accent]
Mr.
Bishop.
BISHOP
(FIRST WELL-DRESSED WESTERN MAN):
[startled]
Oh,
Dr. Schreiber. You surprised me.
DR.
SCHRIEBER:
[somewhat
anxiously]
I’m
sorry. May I have a word with you?
BISHOP:
Shoot.
DR.
SCHRIEBER:
No.
A private word.
BISHOP:
[friendly]
Sure.
Just a moment.
Bishop
turns back to the teller, finishes his business, then turns back to
Schreiber who is clearly agitated.
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